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| Hanging in there for a new year |
A quick question for library folks: Do you have the Journal of the Academy of Public Health* in your catalog?
It may come as a surprise to find that it's in there & you may want to reconsider that listing.
The cautionary February 2025 New journal co-founded by NIH nominee raises eyebrows, misinformation fears from Science is valid. The journal currently contains 2 literature syntheses articles, labeled as open peer review, that contain political and ideological language (and additional indicators for further evaluation, see below) in their titles & content.
That's fine for editorial & opinion articles, but not in the peer reviewed research literature synthesis articles that our users frequently are searching for & citing in their own research.
For a 2026 evaluating information guide update, I wrote about health information with attribution to our Canadian neighbours' excellent 6 signs a source is unreliable for when trusted health sources are starting to feel off from ScienceUpFirst:
Six indicators for further evaluation include
- Selective or misleading use of studies or data.
- Use of political or ideological language.
- Ignores credible scientific criticisms and article corrections.
- Breaks from broad peer-reviewed expert consensus.
- Asks for impossible or double negative proofs.
- Constant messaging changes.
If in doubt, look to see what other trusted health information organizations are saying about the same information before sharing it.
I'm refreshing my own teaching to be even more clear about what evidence-based information is & who trusted health information organizations are in this year ahead!
* I don't want to send them any click traffic which is why I'm not directly linking to the journal website. Archive.org hasn't picked up the 2 articles yet to link to them either.
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