FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)


-- Is Epidemiologic Inquiry a journal or a weblog?
As of September 2006, Epidemiologic Inquiry re-premiered on http://www.Epidemiologic.org as a weblog and epidemiology resource center. However, it is important to highlight that in this day and age, weblogs are no longer informal journals, as reputable weblogs are now eligible for the famed Pulitzer Prize. Furthermore, we still uphold the professionalism expected in science.


-- Who are the editors, and why the anonymity?
We expect readers to notice the obvious enigma. We would first like to say that our editorial board indeed consists of epidemiologists with doctoral-qualifications and degrees in epidemiology and public health. Additionally, our editors have experience publishing in leading journals, including several first-author publications in major research journals, as well as serving as directors and principal investigators on federal research grants.

After very careful consideration, the editors believe is it prudent to remain anonymous to avoid jeopardizing their academic careers, and more importantly to allow editors to remain objective and humble in their daily personal lives. Meanwhile, in context of the philosophy of protective anonymity in epidemiology -- it is of note that is the policy of the American Epidemiology Society (AES) to similarly not officially divulge the membership list of the society, nor publish any online site describing the nature of the organization. That said, we are not members of AES.

Therefore, given the currently accepted nature of anonymity in certain epidemiology organizations, and for our unique personal reasons discussed, we feel it is prudent to not disclose the identity of our editors, who selflessly volunteer our own personal time and efforts and remain objective to the purposes of Epidemiologic.org. The founders of Epidemiologic.org believe in the power of the internet in providing a voice and forum for epidemiologists to debate and collaborate, and we hope readers see this ultimate altruistic objective.


-- Do the editors have any conflicts of interest?
Unless explicitly stated under unusual circumstances, the editors do not have any conflicts of interest regarding substantive content written on Epidemiologic.org. However, we declare that the editors do receive nominal revenue from contextual text-based Google ads and Amazon sales comissions to defray the costs of software upgrades, domain registration, and website server hosting (which totals to more than $100 per year, with costs expected to increase with increasing traffic). We emphasize that Epidemiologic.org is not for profit, but for open-science.


-- Will subscription emails ever be distributed to third parties?
No. We assure our readership that we will never distribute emails of Epidemiologic.org subscribers to third parties for any commercial reason. The only time Epidemiologic.org may allow an external group to borrow our email listserv is if it is for strictly a non-profit epidemiologic research project. Even then, we will not distribute our actually email list to the third party, but rather they may only send emails via our editors as proxy.


[Others to be added as they arise]