Editorial JAMA Network Open—The Year in Review, 2020 Frederick P. Rivara, MD, MPH; Stephan D. Fihn, MD, MPH
Life changed for all of us in 2020 because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and + Related article its myriad consequences for everyone around the globe. Two centuries ago, Tolstoy said, “Happy Author affiliations and article information are 1 families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” So, too, with the COVID-19 listed at the end of this article. pandemic: how each of us and our families are affected has been highly individual. The COVID-19 pandemic affected JAMA Network Open, but in a very positive way. The mission of the journal has never been more relevant than during this past year: to be “an international, peer- reviewed, open access, general medical journal that publishes research on clinical care, innovation in health care, health policy, and global health across all health disciplines and countries for clinicians, investigators, and policy makers.”2 As an open access journal, all of our content is immediately free to readers everywhere, whether they are investigators, clinicians, public health experts, policy makers, or the general public. At a time when science is undermined by false information from individuals with specific agendas and widely disseminated across the web, the ability to publish facts and data daily to inform health care and health policy underscores the critical mission of the journal. The year has been a busy one for JAMA Network Open.TheTable shows some of the key statistics for the journal. We received 9355 submissions, an increase of 215% from 2019. The journal published 1292 research articles in 2020, a 62% increase compared with the previous year, resulting in a decrease in our acceptance rate to 14%. In addition, we published Invited Commentaries for approximately 20% of these research articles, and we began publishing visual abstracts to accompany the many randomized clinical trials published in the journal. JAMA Network Open is truly an international journal, with 56% of submissions originating from outside the United States, led by China, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Italy, South Korea, France, Australia, and Germany. Studies related to the COVID-19 pandemic accounted for approximately 40% of all manuscripts received in 2020. Our editors and staff have labored mightily to both maintain our standards and notify authors of our decisions expeditiously. We are heavily indebted to the unsung heroes of JAMA Network Open, the 3412 reviewers who donated their time and expertise to inform our decisions and help authors improve their papers. These peer reviewers not only provided careful critiques, but did so in a median of 13 days. To ensure that the work we publish is valid, we continue to obtain rigorous statistical reviews from our dedicated cadre of statistical reviewers on essentially all the papers we publish. As shown in the Table, we make a decision within 1 to 2 days about whether we will pursue a submitted manuscript, allowing authors to quickly seek other avenues for publication as needed. We now publish 5 days a week, which enables us to publish papers within 8 weeks of acceptance. Articles of critical health importance are published much more quickly. Our content is widely disseminated. This past year, there were more than 12 million views and downloads of articles published in JAMA Network Open. Nearly 100 000 people received an email with an electronic table of contents of the most recently published articles twice per week, facilitating quick access to work of individual interest. Papers published in JAMA Network Open in 2020 have been mentioned in the news media more than 46 000 times, and the journal has more than 26 000 social media followers. One measure of the media attention is the Altmetric Attention Score, which is a weighted count of mentions of an article in mainstream news, social media, blogs, and policy documents. The top articles for JAMA Network Open in 2020 were all related to COVID-19, and each had more than 300 000 views, with remarkably high Altmetric Attention Scores.3-6
Open Access. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License.
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Table. JAMA Network Open Statistics for 2020
Characteristica Result Manuscript data Research manuscripts, No. Received 9355 Published 1292 Invited commentaries and 257 editorials, No. Research acceptance rate, % 14 Peer reviewer turnaround, 13 median, d Receipt to first decision, median, d Without peer review 2 With peer review 44 Receipt to acceptance, 85 median, d Acceptance to publication, 65 median, d International manuscripts submitted, % 56 Top submitting international countries China, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, Taiwan, Italy, South Korea, France, Australia, Germany Top 15 published subject areas Health policy, oncology, public health, infectious diseases, psychiatry, cardiology, pediatrics, substance use and addiction, geriatrics, surgery, health informatics, neurology, gastroenterology and hepatology, critical care medicine, diabetes and endocrinology Information dissemination data Recipients of electronic table of contents >94 000 per week, No. Article views and downloads >12 million per year, No. Media mentions >46 000 Twitter and Facebook followers >26 000 Top 3 most viewed articles in 2020, No. of views and downloads Meltzer et al,3 Association of Vitamin D 317 537 Status and Other Clinical Characteristics With COVID-19 Test Results Madewell et al,4 Household Transmission of 365 179 SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Lai et al,5 Factors Associated With Mental 314 970 Health Outcomes Among Health Care Workers Exposed to Coronavirus Disease 2019 Top 3 articles for electronic attention in 2019, Altmetric scoreb Madewell et al,4 Household Transmission of 11 357 SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Lai et al,5 Factors Associated With Mental 3772 Health Outcomes Among Health Care Workers Exposed to Coronavirus Disease 2019 Paltiel et al,6 Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 3679 Screening Strategies to Permit the Safe Reopening of College Campuses in the United States
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Table. JAMA Network Open Statistics for 2020 (continued)
Characteristica Result Top 3 cited articles, No. of citations Lai et al,5 Factors Associated With Mental 859 Health Outcomes Among Health Care Workers Exposed to Coronavirus Disease 2019 Borba et al,7 Effect of High vs Low Doses of 324 Chloroquine Diphosphate as Adjunctive Therapy for Patients Hospitalized With Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection: A Randomized Clinical Trial Li et al,8 Clinical Characteristics and Results 111 of Semen Tests Among Men With Coronavirus Disease 2019 a Data are based on major manuscripts, defined as all research, review and educational, and opinion articles. b Altmetric score is a measure of electronic news and social media attention.
Although 2020 was only the second full year of publication for JAMA Network Open, it is already well established as a leading general medical journal. In June 2020, the journal received its first impact factor, 5.03, immediately placing the journal as one of the top fully open access health and public health publications. We are particularly proud of this metric, given the very large denominator of original research that we publish. The journal’s top cited articles from 2020 are also listed in the Table.5,7,8 In addition, the journal is indexed in Medline, Science Citation Index Expanded, Scopus, and the Directory of Open Access Journals, and all research articles are deposited in PubMed Central. Our calls for papers have addressed critical health, health care, and public health concerns. In 2020, the call for papers on severe maternal morbidity and mortality9 addressed the shameful problem in the US—the increase in maternal morbidity and mortality over the last 3 decades as well as the continued high rates in many low- and middle-income countries. Our call for papers on the effects of systemic racism in health10 and an accompanying Editorial11 focus overdue attention on this pervasive problem in the US and other countries and reflect our commitment to improving the evidence base on reversing this problem and reversing its deleterious effects on the health of large segments of the population. We anticipate other calls for papers this year on topics that are essential to improving health around the world. The journal owes its success to the efforts of many people, only a few of whom can be named here. The team of our associate editors, digital editor, statistical editor, and assistant editors has expanded as our journal has grown and is truly outstanding. Our discussions during our 3 manuscript meetings each week are lively intellectual interchanges as we carefully consider each manuscript and the reviewers’ comments in our decisions on what we should publish. Our editorial staff has worked tirelessly to ensure that every issue of JAMA Network Open appears online with superbly edited content. Daniel Lowden, Michaela Mark, Jennifer Ball, and Ashley Lao perform the day-to-day processing of submissions, reviews, and author correspondence and are responsible the incredibly smooth process required to publish 5 to 7 papers every weekday. We are also supported by a dedicated team of manuscript editors led by Heather Green and the JAMA Network production staff. Our distinguished editorial board has provided guidance and advice on how to make JAMA Network Open not just the best open access journal in the world, but one of the best journals publishing health-related research. We are most indebted to Howard Bauchner, MD, editor in chief of JAMA and the JAMA Network; Tom Easley, executive publisher of the JAMA Network; and Annette Flanagin, RN, MA, executive managing editor of JAMA and the JAMA Network. They had a vision for an open access journal that would uphold the same high standards as the other journals in the JAMA Network and the unflagging commitment to make that vision a reality. Without their tireless support, this enterprise would not have achieved the success it has.
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Finally, our greatest expression of gratitude is to the authors who have entrusted JAMA Network Open with the fruits of their toil and the many patients, families, and members of the community who participated in the studies and made all of this possible. As stewards of an international journal, we join with our readers from around the world to hope for a better year in 2021 and promise that JAMA Network Open will continue to provide a home for cutting-edge, clinically relevant science that will help meet that expectation. Thanks to all of you.
ARTICLE INFORMATION Published: March 8, 2021. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.2388 Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License.©2021RivaraFPetal. JAMA Network Open. Corresponding Author: Frederick P. Rivara, MD, MPH, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, 325 Ninth Ave, Box 359960, Seattle, WA 98104 ([email protected]). Author Affiliations: Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle (Rivara); Editor, JAMA Network Open (Rivara); Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle (Fihn); Deputy Editor, JAMA Network Open (Fihn). Conflict of Interest Disclosures: None reported.
REFERENCES 1. Tolstoy L. Anna Karenina. Penguin; 2000. 2. JAMA Network. About JAMA Network Open. Accessed February 1, 2021. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/ jamanetworkopen/pages/for-authors#fa-about 3. Meltzer DO, Best TJ, Zhang H, Vokes T, Arora V, Solway J. Association of vitamin D status and other clinical characteristics with COVID-19 test results. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(9):e2019722. doi:10.1001/ jamanetworkopen.2020.19722 4. Madewell ZJ, Yang Y, Longini IM Jr, Halloran ME, Dean NE. Household transmission of SARS-CoV-2: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(12):e2031756. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.31756 5. Lai J, Ma S, Wang Y, et al. Factors associated with mental health outcomes among health care workers exposed to coronavirus disease 2019. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(3):e203976. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.3976 6. Paltiel AD, Zheng A, Walensky RP. Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 screening strategies to permit the safe reopening of college campuses in the United States. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(7):e2016818. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen. 2020.16818 7. Borba MGS, Val FFA, Sampaio VS, et al; CloroCovid-19 Team. Effect of high vs low doses of chloroquine diphosphate as adjunctive therapy for patients hospitalized with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(4):e208857. doi:10.1001/ jamanetworkopen.2020.8857 8. Li D, Jin M, Bao P, Zhao W, Zhang S. Clinical Characteristics and results of semen tests among men with coronavirus disease 2019. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(5):e208292. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.8292 9. Rivara FP, Fihn SD. Severe maternal morbidity and mortality: JAMA Network Open call for papers. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(1):e200045. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.0045 10. Rivara FP, Fihn SD. Call for papers on prevention and the effects of systemic racism in health. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(8):e2016825. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.16825 11. Ogedegbe G. Responsibility of medical journals in addressing racism in health care. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3 (8):e2016531. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.16531
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