Recruiting

Triple Masking

Sponsor:

Queens College, The City University of New York

Code:

NCT06067633

Conditions

Publication of Articles Submitted to the American Journal of Public Health

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 0+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Triple-Masked

Usual Procedures

Study Details

Brief summary:

The trial is designed to determine whether knowledge of the identity of the authors, their institutions and of the reviewers of a given article submitted to American Journal of Public Health impacts the final editorial decision. The concept of triple masked editorial process (where editors are unaware of author identities and affiliations in addition to the authors' and reviewers' identities being masked from one another) compared to a double masked process (only authors' and reviewers' identities are hidden from one another; editors are aware of author and reviewer identities) has not been formally tested in a scientific journal, and particularly not in medicals social science, or public health journal. Triple-masking is expected to lead to greater acceptance of articles submitted overall because it will neutralize biases against some authors and reviewers because of who they are or the institutions they are related to.

The triple masked editorial process, in which the editors, the authors and the reviewers ignore their respective identities will be compared to a double masked, in which the editor knows the identity of the authors and reviewers, because double masked is currently the editorial process used by the American Journal of Public Health.

Even though only manuscripts are randomized, the trial will collect information about the identity of the authors (eg, genes, race/ethnicity, seniority) and the reviewers to be used for secondary analysis. In this sense it is dealing with human subjects and has obtained an exemption from the Institutional Review Board of Queens College.

Conditions

Publication of Articles Submitted to the American Journal of Public Health

Study ID

NCT06067633

Start date

Sep 6, 2023

Status verified date

Oct, 2023

Completion date

Mar 1, 2024

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Mar 1, 2024

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 0+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • New submissions
  • Article formats: research articles, notes from the field, non-commissioned editorials, analytic essays, systematic reviews

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Resubmissions
  • Article formats: Commissioned editorials, book reviews, Letters to the Editor, Public Health of Consequence editorials, Editor's Choice.

Study Design

Enrollment

1500 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Other

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Triple-Masked

For articles allocated to the blinded (masked) editorial process, the editorial assistant will delete identifiable/unmasking content of cover page and letters. All articles will be flagged as being in triplemasked editorial process arm in the document title

active comparator: Usual Procedures

All articles will be flagged as being in usual editorial process arm in the document title. For articles allocated to the usual (double-masked) editorial process, the editorial assistant will leave identifiable/unmasking content of cover page and letters for the editors.

Interventions

Triple-Masked

Eligible manuscripts in the triple-masked editorial process arm will be masked electronically before being entered in the trial by the editorial assistant

Usual Procedures

Articles will be processed by the editors with identifiable/unmasking content of cover page and letters.

Primary outcome measure

  • Difference in the proportion of manuscripts submitted within the six-month window that are accepted for publication (i.e., not rejected at any stage); risk difference, unadjusted [ Time Frame: full duration of the study, 6 months, from September 5 2023 to March 1 2024 ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

ALFREDO MORABIA

9176648789amorabia@qc.cuny.edu

ALFREDO MORABIA

amorabia@qc.cuny.edu

Locations

QueensC

Recruiting

New York, New York, United States, 11365

Contacts

ALFREDO MORABIA

amorabia@qc.cuny.edu

More Information

Sponsor

Queens College, The City University of New York

Last update posted

Oct 5, 2023

Last verified

Oct, 2023

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Queens College, The City University of New York on 2023-10-05.