Thanking Reviewers, Acknowledging Authors, and Serving the Needs of Readers

The Journal of the American Medical Association serves a variety of interrelated constituencies, including physicians and other health care professionals, authors and other biomedical researchers, peer reviewers, medical students, advertisers, the public media, and, ultimately, patients. Each year, THE JOURNAL publishes results from our editorial and peer review audit to provide information to help these groups and others gain understanding of our publication processes, and also to publicly recognize and thank our peer reviewer consultants.¹ This year, we provide additional information for 2 of the most important constituencies of THE JOURNAL: authors and readers.

Peer review is perhaps the most critical aspect of the scientific review process.² The editors of THE JOURNAL rely on peer reviewers for their objective appraisal of the scientific quality and merit of submitted manuscripts, and for their thoughtful comments and critique for improving the manuscript. We also value and carefully consider the opinions of the peer reviewers in determining whether the manuscript under consideration reaches the level of importance and newness that merits publication in JAMA, and in judging its suitability for the readership of a large-circulation general medical journal. These indispensable and voluntary peer reviews represent countless hours of work by a cadre of busy clinicians, researchers, and health professionals that spans every specialty, reflects expertise in virtually every biomedical discipline, and epitomizes dedication to academic excellence.

In 1998, 3555 peer reviewers completed manuscript reviews for JAMA. As a sign of our gratitude, we are publishing their names in this issue of THE JOURNAL.³ The editors express our sincere thanks to these reviewers for their significant contribution to the success of THE JOURNAL.

The editors also express sincere appreciation to the many authors who submit manuscripts for consideration for publication in JAMA. In 1998, we received 4019 manuscripts. The overall acceptance rate was 15% and the acceptance rate for unsolicited manuscripts was 9% The mean time from receipt of the manuscript to rejection was 43 days, from receipt to acceptance was 120 days, and from receipt to publication was 180 days. The most common types of manuscripts we receive are reports of original data, which usually are classified as Original Contributions. While we emphasize and assign highest editorial priority to publication of reports of original science, we also welcome and encourage submission of high-quality manuscripts for all categories of THE JOURNAL, such as Reviews, Consensus Statements, Caring for the Critically Ill Patient, Health Law and Ethics, the Patient-Physician Relationship, and Commentaries.

Moreover, we also invite submission of scholarly manuscripts for 2 particular sections—Caring for the Uninsured and Underinsured and Policy Perspectives, which are devoted to improving the health of the uninsured and informing health policy, respectively. With the number of uninsured persons in the United States estimated at nearly 45 million⁴ and with many more persons underinsured during at least some portion of the year, we plan to publish in our Caring for the Uninsured and Underinsured section high-quality articles to continue to address this important issue. Carin M. Olson, MD, a JAMA Contributing Editor, and William L. Roper, MD, MPH, a member of the JAMA Editorial Board, former administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, and current Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, are responsible for coordinating articles for publication in the "Caring" section.

In addition, with the rapid changes and continual developments in health policy, such as the ongoing debate surrounding Medicare reform, our Policy Perspectives section serves as an important forum in which to keep physicians informed about current health policy issues. Drummond Rennie, MD, JAMA Deputy Editor (West) and Adjunct Professor of Medicine, the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, and Robert J. Blendon, ScD, a member of the JAMA Editorial Board and Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard School of Public Health at Harvard University, are responsible for coordinating articles for publication in the Policy Perspectives section.

As is the goal of virtually all publications, THE JOURNAL is dedicated to serving the needs of our readers. Accordingly, our primary objective is to publish the highest quality articles possible to advance medical science and keep physicians informed, thereby enabling clinicians to provide the most up-to-date, scientifically based care for their patients. We also strive to serve the needs of our readers in other ways. For instance, since November 1997, physicians have been able to earn continuing medical education credit—free of charge—by reading reviews and original research articles in JAMA⁵ and submitting a 1-page CME evaluation form.⁶ Likewise, the JAMA Patient Page, which was launched in April 1998,^{7 - 8} was created to enhance communication and increase the exchange of information between physicians and their patients. Also, the redesign of THE JOURNAL, which was implemented in January 1999, has improved article layout, text typography, and graphics and allows for easier and more efficient reading.⁹ However, a number of readers expressed concerns that the typeface of the redesigned text was too light. In response, beginning with the first issue of April, we increased the weight of the text to enhance readability even further.

We thank the JAMA peer reviewers and the many authors who submit manuscripts for their highly valued and absolutely essential contributions. As THE JOURNAL continues to fulfill its mission "to promote the science and art of medicine and the betterment of the public health," we encourage readers and other constituencies to let us know how well we are serving their needs for medical information.