Evidence on the role of journal editors in the COVID19 infodemic: metascientific study analyzing COVID19 publication rates and patterns

ObjectiveInfodemic, a neologism characterizing an excess of fast-tracked low quality publications, has been employed to depict the scientific research response to the COVID19 crisis. The concept relies on the presumed exponential growth of research output. This study aimed to test the COVID19 infodemic claim by assessing publication rates and patterns of COVID19-related research and a control, a year prior. DesignA Reproduction Number of Publications (Rp) was conceived. It was conceptualized as a division of a week incidence of publications by the average of publications of the previous week. The publication growth rates of preprint and MEDLINE-indexed peer-reviewed literature on COVID19 were compared using the correspondent Influenza output, a year prior, as control. Rp for COVID19 and Influenza papers and preprints were generated and compared and then analyzed in light of the respective growth patterns of their papers and preprints. Main outcomesOutput growth rates and Reproduction Number of Publications (Rp). ResultsCOVID19 peer-reviewed papers showed a fourteen fold increase compared to Influenza papers. COVID19 papers and preprints displayed an exponential growth curve until the 20th week. COVID19 papers displayed Rp=3.17{+/-}0.72, while the control group presented Rp=0.97{+/-}0.12. Their preprints exhibited Rp=2.18{+/-}0.54 and Rp=0.97{+/-}0.27 respectively, with no evidence of exponential growth in the control group, as its Rp remained approximately one. ConclusionsCOVID19 publications displayed an epidemic pattern. As the growth patterns of COVID19 peer-reviewed articles and preprints were similar, and the majority of the COVID19 output came from indexed journals, not only authors but also editors appear to had played a significant part on the infodemic. Review protocolhttps://osf.io/q3zkw/?view_only=ff540dc4630b4c6e9a2639d732047324 Ethical aspectsNo ethical clarence was required as all analyzed data were publicly available. O_TEXTBOXSUMMARY BOX 1. What is already known about this subject? Much has been commented on 2020s excess of publications on COVID19. Independent studies found evidence of increased volume and speed of publication, decreased methodological quality, and qualitative variations in peer review of COVID19 papers, when compared to the scholarly output from before the pandemic. This phenomenon has been branded an infodemic, a neologism implying an epidemic of low-quality information on COVID19 when high quality scientific reports to inform health policies would have been needed the most. 2. What are the new findings? No study pushed the infodemic metaphor forward to analyze not only volume of publication but also publication rates comparing them to a control group as to clearly pinpoint an exponential phase of contagion in the infodemic (as it would take place in a real epidemic) through a mathematical analysis of the growth patterns and rates of those publications. In this paper, we were able to demonstrate that there has been an infodemic indeed and that the editor population was as susceptible to the infodemic bug as the author population because the exponential phase was shaped not only by authors but mainly by editors from PubMed-indexed journals. 3.How might it impact clinical practice in the foreseeable future? These results and conclusions are consequential to subsequent studies on rigor and depth of post publication peer review and on editorial practices within the life and health sciences research community. C_TEXTBOX