Dissemination of Information During Public Health Crises: Early COVID-19 Data From The Laryngoscope.

Abstract

During a public health crisis, it is important for medical journals to share information in a timely manner while maintaining a robust peer-review process. This review reports and analyzes The Laryngoscope's publication trends and practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, before the COVID-19 pandemic, and during previous pandemics. Comprehensive review of two databases (PubMed and The Laryngoscope) was performed. COVID-19 manuscripts (published in The Laryngoscope during the first 4 months of the pandemic) were identified and compared to manuscripts pertaining to historic pandemics (published in The Laryngoscope during the first 2 years of each outbreak). Keywords included "Laryngoscope", "flu", "pandemic", "influenza", "SARS", "severe acute respiratory syndrome", "coronavirus", "COVID-19", and "SARS-CoV-2". Data were obtained from The Laryngoscope to characterize publication trends during and before the COVID-19 pandemic. From March 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020, The Laryngoscope had 203 COVID-19 submissions. As of July 8, 2020, 20 (9.9%) were accepted, 117 (57.6%) under review, and 66 (32.5%) rejected. During the first 4 months of the pandemic, 18 COVID-19 manuscripts were published. The mean number of days from submission to online publication was 45, compared to 170 in 2018 and 196 in 2019. A total of 4 manuscripts concerning previous pandemics were published during the initial 2 years of each outbreak. The Laryngoscope rapidly disseminated quality publications during the COVID-19 pandemic by upholding a robust peer-review process while expediting editorial steps, highlighting relevant articles online, and providing open access to make COVID-19-related publications available as quickly as possible. Laryngoscope, 130:2508-2515, 2020.