# Health Disparity Populations and Other Community Members as Reviewers of Medical Journal Manuscripts

> **NIH NIH U54** · CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $219,697

## Abstract

ABSTRACT: RESEARCH PROJECT #2
Manuscripts submitted to medical journals are typically reviewed by physicians or researchers, with no input
from patients or other community members. However, involvement of community members in other phases
of the research process suggests that they provide distinct and useful expertise. Such involvement may
lead to enhanced understanding of community priorities, refinement of study designs to minimize participant
burden, and increased recruitment and retention of subjects. In general, community involvement in
research is more common in the earlier phases of the research process (selection of research question and
development of a study protocol) and less common in later phases (dissemination and implementation of
findings). We conducted a pilot study that recruited and trained community members to review medical
journal manuscripts. We found that community reviewers were much more likely than scientific reviewers to
comment on i) the relevance of the study to patients and communities, ii) the diversity and complexity of the
study participants, iii) the social context of the condition studied, and iv) barriers to implementation of study
findings by patients and communities.
We now seek to rigorously determine the impact of community members reviewing medical journal
manuscripts. We propose a randomized controlled trial involving 16 community members who will receive
training and mentoring in reviewing manuscripts. To ensure that the perspectives of health disparity
populations are well represented, at least 75% of participants will be racial/ethnic minorities, be
sexual/gender minorities, or have a low socioeconomic status. A total of 568 manuscripts submitted to 2
medical journals will be randomly assigned to an intervention or control group. Intervention manuscripts will
be reviewed by both a community member and by scientific reviewers while control manuscripts will be
reviewed only by scientific reviewers. Journal editorial teams will use all reviews to help them make
decisions about acceptance, revision, or rejection of manuscripts. Quantitative and qualitative analyses will
i) compare the content of community and scientific reviews, ii) determine the usefulness of community
reviews to journal editors, and iii) explore how community reviewer comments are integrated into published
articles.
The proposed project is a novel approach to engaging health disparity populations and other community
members in dissemination of research findings. This approach has the potential to provide new and distinct
perspectives, to increase the quality and relevance of articles published in medical journals, and to enhance
dissemination and implementation of research findings.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10150482
- **Project number:** 5U54MD002265-15
- **Recipient organization:** CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Ashwini Sehgal
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $219,697
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2007-07-01 → 2024-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10150482

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10150482, Health Disparity Populations and Other Community Members as Reviewers of Medical Journal Manuscripts (5U54MD002265-15). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10150482. Licensed CC0.

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