1 Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA. 2 Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA. 3 Department of Dermatology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
Scientific manuscript peer review has a 300-year history, but formal analysis of validity of peer review began in the late 20th century. Peer review bias was suggested in the 1980s, but in a 1997 congress, no significant reviewer bias was detected. Within dermatology, the peer review process has hardly been studied. The majority of dermatology journals have a single-blind (SB) peer review process, with reviewers informed of author identity, but authors unaware of reviewers’. Few journals have a double-blind (DB) process, such that neither authors nor reviewers are aware of identity. We conducted a cross-sectional study investigating associations between peer review blinding and author publication metrics.