A compelling symmetry: The extended fetuses-at-risk perspective on modal, optimal and relative birthweight and gestational age

K. S. Joseph

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0238673

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionAugust 19, 2020
29 Sep 2020 Decision Letter - Frank T. Spradley, Editor PONE-D-20-25958 A compelling symmetry: The extended fetuses-at-risk perspective on modal, optimal and relative birthweight and gestational age PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Joseph, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ALL of the reviewer's comments must be addressed in your revised manuscript. Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 13 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Frank T. Spradley Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The research article is informative but diagrams would look better if multiple colors could be used. Please explain why acceleration in the birth rate peaks earlier in higher-risk cohorts compared with lower-risk cohorts Reviewer #2: This manuscript presents further analysis on a larger data set from NCHS birth-death linkage records with the purpose of presenting an analysis of perinatal deaths taking into account the change of such deaths by week of gestation. The authors obtained an estimate on change of rates from cubic spline or polynomial curve fitting of the rates using the number of fetuses at risk, and describes an assessment of perinatal deaths taking into account differences in birth rates by gestational age. The approach proposed by the authors is similar to the Bongaarts and Feeney approach to demographic phenomena and it was received with skepticism and not widely adopted to the assessment of cross-sectional data such as those presented here. The CDC NVSS calls the data birth cohort, but they are in nature cross-sectional data, as opposed to true birth cohort studies that collect information as early as possible during pregnancy. The authors may want to address this limitation of their data. An example of a birth cohort study can be found in the reference below. 1. Olsen J, Melbye M, Olsen SF, Sørensen TI, Aaby P, Andersen AM, Taxbøl D, Hansen KD, Juhl M, Schow TB, Sørensen HT, Andresen J, Mortensen EL, Olesen AW, Søndergaard C. The Danish National Birth Cohort--its background, structure and aim. Scand J Public Health. 2001 Dec;29(4):300-7. doi: 10.1177/14034948010290040201. PMID: 11775787. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Farzana Ahmed Reviewer #2: Yes:** Victor M Cardenas [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238673.r001
Revision 1
7 Oct 2020 Author Response Reviewer #1: Comment: The research article is informative but diagrams would look better if multiple colors could be used. Response: The Figures have been revised and colors have been used to distinguish the curves in the graphs. Comment: Please explain why acceleration in the birth rate peaks earlier in higher-risk cohorts compared with lower-risk cohorts. Response: The revised manuscript now includes an explanation for why the birth rate peaks earlier in higher risk cohorts (Page 13-14 lines 285-91) “It has been suggested that the greater acceleration in the birth rate of higher-risk cohorts represents an exaggerated, hypersensitivity‐type response to adverse influences in pregnancy, and could reflect an evolutionary mechanism that prioritises maternal survival in the face of potential threats to fetal well‐being [29]. However, the mechanism underlying peak acceleration in the birth rate, and its subsequent decline is unclear and one postulated explanation involves a depletion of susceptibles: pregnancies that reach late gestation are less responsive to hormonal and other triggers that initiate parturition [29].” Reviewer #2: Comment: This manuscript presents further analysis on a larger data set from NCHS birth-death linkage records with the purpose of presenting an analysis of perinatal deaths taking into account the change of such deaths by week of gestation. The authors obtained an estimate on change of rates from cubic spline or polynomial curve fitting of the rates using the number of fetuses at risk, and describes an assessment of perinatal deaths taking into account differences in birth rates by gestational age. The approach proposed by the authors is similar to the Bongaarts and Feeney approach to demographic phenomena and it was received with skepticism and not widely adopted to the assessment of cross-sectional data such as those presented here. The CDC NVSS calls the data birth cohort, but they are in nature cross-sectional data, as opposed to true birth cohort studies that collect information as early as possible during pregnancy. The authors may want to address this limitation of their data. An example of a birth cohort study can be found in the reference below. 1. Olsen J, Melbye M, Olsen SF, Sørensen TI, Aaby P, Andersen AM, Taxbøl D, Hansen KD, Juhl M, Schow TB, Sørensen HT, Andresen J, Mortensen EL, Olesen AW, Søndergaard C. The Danish National Birth Cohort--its background, structure and aim. Scand J Public Health. 2001 Dec;29(4):300-7. doi: 10.1177/14034948010290040201. PMID: 11775787. Response: The data used for the study was obtained from the period linked birth-infant death data files of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (available at https://www.cdc.gov /nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm). The period linked birth-infant death files are different from the NVSS birth files (also available in the same data repository). The distinction between these files arises because the period linked birth-infant death files contain linked information from the birth file and the (fetal and infant) death files. For instance, the NVSS birth file for 2017, includes information on all live births that occurred in the United States in 2017. On the other hand, the 2017 period linked birth-infant death file includes information from the a) NVSS births file with information on all live births that occurred in 2017 b) fetal death file which includes information on all stillbirths that occurred in 2017 c) death file with information on all infants deaths that occurred in 2017 The 3 files are linked with the intent of documenting the longitudinal experience of all viable births in 2017, with the events of interest restricted to fetal deaths that occur after 20 weeks’ gestation, and infant deaths i.e., deaths that occur within 1 year after birth. Since all live births and stillbirths that occur in 2017 are included in the file, this file does constitute the full 2017 birth cohort denominator. The longitudinal follow up for infant deaths that occur in 2018 to live births occurring in 2017 is not included; this is approximated by including infant deaths in 2017 among live births that occurred in 2016. Note that the cohort birth-infant death files for 2017 include the longitudinal follow up into 2018 and hence availability of these files is delayed by 1 year. In short, the period linked birth-infant death files document the longitudinal experience of a birth cohort’s experience with regard to perinatal mortality and infant mortality. The period and cohort effects to which the Reviewer alludes are well understood within the perinatal epidemiology community and are generally referred to under the concept termed ‘age-period-cohort’ effects. This paper deals primarily with (gestational) age-specific effects among different groups/cohort and period and cohort effects are not explored. Period effects and cohort effects would have shaped some of the phenomena explored in the study: increases in iatrogenic early delivery have increased late preterm birth in recent decades, and obstetric and neonatal care has substantially reduced perinatal death rates. Cohort effects in terms of alterations to maternal health have probably been less obvious, though general improvements in maternal health in recent cohorts and increases in the fertility of women with chronic disease have likely played a role in shaping perinatal mortality trends. However, these phenomena are not likely to have a material impact in shaping the relative (gestational) age-specific patterns of birth and perinatal death rates among contrasted groups e.g., low-risk singletons vs singletons of mothers with hypertension since all contrasts of intersecting mortality curves were within a given period and cohort. The revised manuscript include a sentence regarding this issue in the limitations section of the manuscript (Page 16, line 334-37). “Thus, changes in obstetric and neonatal care, which have impacted birth and perinatal mortality rates over recent decades, likely did not compromise the relative gestational age-specific analyses in this study as contrasted cohorts (e.g., singletons of low-risk women vs twins) would have been affected almost uniformly by period and cohort effects.” Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238673.r002
6 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Frank T. Spradley, Editor PONE-D-20-25958R1 A compelling symmetry: The extended fetuses-at-risk perspective on modal, optimal and relative birthweight and gestational age PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Joseph, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. There is still a comment that should be addressed. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 21 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Frank T. Spradley Academic Editor PLOS ONE Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: The author should acknowledge the limitation of the data to deaths occurring <20 weeks of gestation (about 20% of pregnancies end up in pregnancy losses, the births may not truly represent the denominator (persons at-risk). The data is birth-death linkage cross-sectional in nature not from a cohort study. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Farzana Ahmed Reviewer #2: Yes:** Victor M Cardenas [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238673.r003
Revision 2
9 Nov 2020 Author Response Response to Reviewers’ comments Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: (No Response) Response: No response required. ________________________________________ 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) Response: No response required. ________________________________________ 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) Response: No response required. ________________________________________ 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) Response: No response required. ________________________________________ 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) Response: No response required. ________________________________________ 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: The author should acknowledge the limitation of the data to deaths occurring <20 weeks of gestation (about 20% of pregnancies end up in pregnancy losses, the births may not truly represent the denominator (persons at-risk). The data is birth-death linkage cross-sectional in nature not from a cohort study. Response: A sentence has been added to the Limitations section of the manuscript which acknowledges that the study population was restricted to births at and above 20 weeks’ gestation and that pregnancy losses occurring before 20 weeks were not included in the study’s fetuses-at-risk denominators. Additionally, the revised manuscript includes a sentence stating that the period linked births-infant deaths files are essentially cross sectional in nature (unlike the cohort linked births-infant death files). Page 15, line 322-325 “The study population was restricted to births 20-43 week’s gestation and pregnancy losses that occurred prior to 20 weeks were not included in the study’s fetuses-at-risk denominators. Further, the period linked births-infant deaths files used for the study are essentially cross-sectional in nature (unlike the cohort linked births-infant death files).” Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to ReviewersNov2020.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238673.r004
13 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Frank T. Spradley, Editor A compelling symmetry: The extended fetuses-at-risk perspective on modal, optimal and relative birthweight and gestational age PONE-D-20-25958R2 Dear Dr. Joseph, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Frank T. Spradley Academic Editor PLOS ONE Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238673.r005
Formally Accepted
17 Nov 2020 Acceptance Letter - Frank T. Spradley, Editor PONE-D-20-25958R2 A compelling symmetry: The extended fetuses-at-risk perspective on modal, optimal and relative birthweight and gestational age Dear Dr. Joseph: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Frank T. Spradley Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238673.r006

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .