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.