Results
Among the 252 editors from the six journals, three were duplicates, resulting in 249 unique editors. Of these, 82 (32.9%) were U.S.-based physicians eligible for the Open Payments Database search. The Journal of Travel Medicine had the largest number of editors (85), followed by Emerging Infectious Diseases (70) and Clinical Infectious Diseases (33). However, the proportion of US-based physician editors varied among the journals from 13.6% in Clinical Microbiology and Infection to 60.6% in Clinical Infectious Diseases and 71.4% in Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Of 82 US physician editors, 61 (74.4%) and 45 (54.9%) received non-research payments from the healthcare industry for the periods 2014-2022 and 2020-2022, respectively (Table 1). Meanwhile, 22.4% and 40.3% received direct research payments and associated research funding over the nine years. The total payment amounts to the editors were $3,996,131 in non-research payments, $933,813 in direct research payments, and $39,394,410 in associated research funding. Of non-research payment categories, consulting fees occupied 47.2% ($1,887,151), followed by travel fees (22.9%, $913,790), speaking compensations not related to continuous medical education (16.6%, $663,793), and speaking compensations for continuing medical education (5.4%, $216,920). Median payment values per editor were $3,121 (interquartile range [IQR]: $453 – $9,097) in non-research payments, $5,454 (IQR: $3,456 – $16,820) in research payments, and $187,501 (IQR: $66,533 – $874,783) in associated research funding among the editors who received the payments.
Figure 1 shows the proportion of physician editors receiving non-research payments for the past three and nine years. The majority of US physician editors received non-research payments between 2020 and 2022 in the Clinical Microbiology and Infection (100%, 3 out of 3), Clinical Infections Diseases (71.4%, 15 out of 21), Journal of Travel Medicine (66.7%, 10 out of 15), and Journal of Infectious Diseases (60.0%, 9 out of 15), while 28.6% of the Journal of Infection editors did. Only two journals (Clinical Infectious Diseases and Journal of Infectious Diseases) had conflicts of interest policies for their journal editors available on the journal webpage. Additionally, none of the six journals publicly disclosed the editors’ conflicts of interest information on the journal webpages as of August 2023.