Competing interests: HJH was supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Postgraduate Scholarship, a PhD Top-Up Scholarship from Neuroscience Research Australia and was a Neuroscience Research Australia PhD Pearl sponsored by Sandra Salteri. GCR has a casual contract at the University of Oxford to teach and supervise research and is the Director of a Limited Company that is independently contracted to work as an Epidemiologist in the private sector. GCR is an Associate Editor of BMJ Evidence Based Medicine. AGC was financially supported by an Australian Government Investigator Grant. HJH, HL and AGC are leading the development of a reporting guideline for studies emulating a target trial (TARGET). HL and AGC developed A Guideline for Reporting Mediation Analyses (AGReMA). MJP co-led the development of the PRISMA 2020 statement. MKS is supported by a Health Research Board (HRB) Applying Research Into Policy and Practice (ARPP-2023-010). She was previously financially supported by a European Commission (grant: 676207) for her PhD focused on reporting guidelines (STROBE). All other authors declare no competing interests.