PLOS, Frontiers tighten rules on open health data
Two major scientific publishers, PLOS and Frontiers, are now automatically rejecting most papers based on public health datasets such as the CDC’s NHANES unless authors provide external validation or experimental corroboration, after a surge in low‑quality, likely paper‑mill‑generated studies. Science reports PLOS’s new policy (announced last month) has pushed the rejection rate for such submissions from 40% to 94% in its first month, while Frontiers says it has rejected more than 5,000 open‑dataset papers since May, nearly all using NHANES; the Journal of Global Health also added heightened scrutiny via a detailed checklist.
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📌 Key Facts
- PLOS will auto‑reject open‑dataset papers without added validation; first‑month rejection rate jumped to 94% (from 40%).
- Frontiers requires “external validation” and has rejected 5,000+ open‑dataset papers since May, including nearly all NHANES submissions.
- Journal of Global Health introduced a checklist in July for studies using datasets like Global Burden of Disease, UK Biobank, and NHANES, halving such submissions.