Subject(s)
COVID-19/epidemiology , COVID-19/prevention & control , Delivery of Health Care/organization & administration , Disaster Planning/organization & administration , COVID-19/diagnosis , COVID-19/virology , Economic Status/trends , Female , Health Resources/supply & distribution , Humans , Male , Pandemics , Peer Review/methods , SARS-CoV-2/genetics , Singapore/epidemiology , Vaccines/supply & distributionABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed racism as a public health crisis embedded in structural processes. Editors of surgical research journals pledged their commitment to improve structure and process through increasing diversity in the peer review and editorial process; however, little benchmarking data are available. METHODS: A survey of editorial board members from high impact surgical research journals captured self-identified demographics. Analysis of manuscript submissions from 2016 to 2020 compared acceptance for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-focused manuscripts to overall rates. RESULTS: 25.6% of respondents were female, 2.9% Black, and 3.3% Hispanic. There was variation in the diversity among journals and in the proportion of DEI submissions they attract, but no clear correlation between DEI acceptance rates and board diversity. CONCLUSIONS: Diversity among board members reflects underrepresentation of minorities seen among surgeons nationally. Recruitment and retention of younger individuals, representing more diverse backgrounds, may be a strategy for change. DEI publication rates may benefit from calls for increasing DEI scholarship more so than changes to the peer review process.
Subject(s)
Cultural Diversity , General Surgery , Peer Review , Periodicals as Topic , Adult , Black or African American/statistics & numerical data , Age Factors , Aged , Biomedical Research , Editorial Policies , Female , Hispanic or Latino/statistics & numerical data , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Peer Review/methods , Sex Factors , United States , White People/statistics & numerical dataABSTRACT
Retractions of COVID-19 literature in both preprints and the peer-reviewed literature serve as a reminder that there are still challenging issues underlying the integrity of the biomedical literature. The risks to academia become larger when such retractions take place in high-ranking biomedical journals. In some cases, retractions result from unreliable or nonexistent data, an issue that could easily be avoided by having open data policies, but there have also been retractions due to oversight in peer review and editorial verification. As COVID-19 continues to affect academics and societies around the world, failures in peer review might also constitute a public health risk. The effectiveness by which COVID-19 literature is corrected, including through retractions, depends on the stringency of measures in place to detect errors and to correct erroneous literature. It also relies on the stringent implementation of open data policies.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/therapy , Peer Review , Retraction of Publication as Topic , Editorial Policies , Humans , Peer Review/methods , Periodicals as Topic/standards , Risk Factors , Time FactorsABSTRACT
The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has affected business on numerous fronts in unprecedented and abrupt ways. From site closures and local "stay-at-home orders" to travel advisories and restrictions, the day-to-day practice of toxicologic pathology has been impacted dramatically and rapidly. A critical function of Toxicologic Pathologists is performing pathology peer review for nonclinical studies. Traditionally, corroborating the findings of histological assessment could be achieved through shipment of histopathological slides to the peer review pathologist, or by the peer review pathologist traveling to the location of the slides (eg, the test facility). Since early 2020, many pathologists have been unable to perform the latter due to local, regional, national, test facility, company, and/or personal restrictions. The disruption for some has been minimal, while others are working from home for the first time. We recommend that contingency plans for all peer review procedures and personnel should be in-place to accommodate sudden and unexpected workflow transitions. Now, more than ever, approaching peer reviews with enhanced adaptability will help ensure success.