November 29, 2016
Groundbreaking research in reporting observational studies in food animal production will be published simultaneously in five professional journals in early December.
The international group of 16 researchers in veterinary science and food safety is co-led by Dr. Annette O’Connor, professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine at Iowa State University. The new guideline looks at improving writing, reporting and reducing waste in research.
“Because comprehensive reporting is essential to translation of research to end users, guidelines of what constitutes a complete report of research is needed,” O’Connor said. “There is substantial evidence that authors omit important information from reports, making research harder to understand or use.
“Authors, reviewers, editors and end-users have different uses for the checklist, but ultimately the goal is to improve reporting and ensure society gets the most value from the funds invested in research.”
The new guideline will be featured in articles published on Dec. 1 by Zoonosis and Public Health, Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, Journal of Food Protection, Preventive Veterinary Medicine and the Journal of Swine Health and Production.
The guideline has two components including a checklist and discussion of how it was development and explanation and elaboration document which explains the rationale for each checklist item and provides examples that help authors in their own writing. The explanation and elaboration document will appear only in Zoonosis and Public Health and the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine.
“The goal is to improve communication of scientific results but one side benefit of checklists is in saving time,” O’Connor said. “Since using reporting guidelines for preparing publications, I see dramatically improved publication drafts from my students and reviewing is a lot faster.”
Courses on how to use the checklist will be held in December in Chicago and then in March in Scotland. More information on the checklist is available at www.strobevet-statement.org. This is the second reporting guidelines developed by the team. The first one published in 2009 relates to randomized controlled trials (www.reflect-statement.org)