International Stem Cell Collaboration: How Disparate Policies between the United States and the United Kingdom Impact Research

As the scientific community globalizes, it is increasingly important to understand the effects of international collaboration on the quality and quantity of research produced. While it is generally assumed that international collaboration enhances the quality of research, this phenomenon is not well examined. Stem cell research is unique in that it is both politically charged and a research area that often generates international collaborations, making it an ideal case through which to examine international collaborations. Furthermore, with promising medical applications, the research area is dynamic and responsive to a globalizing science environment. Thus, studying international collaborations in stem cell research elucidates the role of existing international networks in promoting quality research, as well as the effects that disparate national policies might have on research. This study examined the impact of collaboration on publication significance in the United States and the United Kingdom, world leaders in stem cell research with disparate policies. We reviewed publications by US and UK authors from 2008, along with their citation rates and the political factors that may have contributed to the number of international collaborations. The data demonstrated that international collaborations significantly increased an article's impact for UK and US investigators. While this applied to UK authors whether they were corresponding or secondary, this effect was most significant for US authors who were corresponding authors. While the UK exhibited a higher proportion of international publications than the US, this difference was consistent with overall trends in international scientific collaboration. The findings suggested that national stem cell policy differences and regulatory mechanisms driving international stem cell research in the US and UK did not affect the frequency of international collaborations, or even the countries with which the US and UK most often collaborated. Geographical and traditional collaborative relationships were the predominate considerations in establishing international collaborations

Effect of physician gender and race on simulated patients’ ratings and confidence in their physicians : A randomized controlled trial

Importance Women and black physicians encounter workplace challenges because of their gender and race. It is unclear whether these individuals are assessed with lower patient satisfaction or confidence ratings compared with white male physicians. Objective To examine whether physician gender and race affect participant ratings in scenarios in which physician competence is challenged. Design, Setting, and Participants This randomized trial enrolled a geographically diverse sample of 3592 online respondents in the United States who were recruited from 2 crowdsourcing platforms: Amazon Mechanical Turk (n = 1741) and Lucid (n = 1851). A 2 × 2 factorial design for the gender and race of simulated physicians was conducted between March 9 and July 25, 2018. Participants were excluded before intervention if they were younger than 18 years, were pregnant, or had a history of cancer or abdominal surgical procedures. Interventions A clinical vignette was presented to the participant with a picture of the emergency department physician. Participants were randomly assigned to physicians with different gender and race, with 823 assigned to black women, 791 to black men, 828 to white women, and 835 to white men. A contradictory diagnosis from an online symptom checker introduced doubt about the clinical diagnosis. Main Outcomes and Measures A composite outcome (range, 0-100, with 0 representing low patient confidence and satisfaction and 100 representing the maximum on the composite scale) measured participant (1) confidence in the physician, (2) satisfaction with care, (3) likelihood to recommend the physician, (4) trust in the physician’s diagnosis, and (5) likelihood to request additional tests. Results Among 3277 adult participants, complete data were available for 3215 (median age, 49 years [range, 18-89 years] Results Among 3277 adult participants, complete data were available for 3215 (median age, 49 years [range, 18-89 years; 1667 [52%] female; 2433 [76%] white). No significant differences were observed in participant satisfaction and physician confidence for the white male physician control physicians (mean composite score, 66.13 [95% CI, 64.76-67.51]) compared with white female (mean composite score, 66.50 [95% CI, 65.19-67.82]), black female (mean composite score, 67.36 [95% CI, 66.03-68.69]), and black male (mean composite score, 66.96 [95% CI, 65.55-68.36]) physicians. Machine learning with bayesian additive regression trees revealed no evidence of treatment effect heterogeneity as a function of participants’ race, gender, racial prejudice, or sexism. Conclusions and Relevance No significant differences were observed for simulated patients’ evaluations of female or black physicians, suggesting that bias in favor of white male physicians is negligible in survey-based measures of patient satisfaction

Emergency Physicians and Personal Narratives Improve the Perceived Effectiveness of COVID- 19 Public Health Recommendations on Social Media: A Randomized Experiment

BackgroundContainment of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID- 19) pandemic requires the public to change behavior under social distancing mandates. Social media are important information dissemination platforms that can augment traditional channels communicating public health recommendations. The objective of the study was to assess the effectiveness of COVID- 19 public health messaging on Twitter when delivered by emergency physicians and containing personal narratives.MethodsOn April 30, 2020, we randomly assigned 2,007 U.S. adults to an online survey using a 2 à  2 factorial design. Participants rated one of four simulated Twitter posts varied by messenger type (emergency physician vs. federal official) and content (personal narrative vs. impersonal guidance). The main outcomes were perceived message effectiveness (35- point scale), perceived attitude effectiveness (PAE; 15- point scale), likelihood of sharing Tweets (7- point scale), and writing a letter to their governor to continue COVID- 19 restrictions (write letter or none).ResultsThe physician/personal (PP) message had the strongest effect and significantly improved all main messaging outcomes except for letter writing. Unadjusted mean differences between PP and federal/impersonal (FI) were as follows: perceived messaging effectiveness (3.2 [95% CI = 2.4 to 4.0]), PAE (1.3 [95% CI = 0.8 to 1.7]), and likelihood of sharing (0.4 [95% CI = 0.15 to 0.7]). For letter writing, PP made no significant impact compared to FI (odds ratio = 1.14 [95% CI = 0.89 to 1.46]).ConclusionsEmergency physicians sharing personal narratives on Twitter are perceived to be more effective at communicating COVID- 19 health recommendations compared to federal officials sharing impersonal guidance.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/166422/1/acem14188-sup-0001-DataSupplementS1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/166422/2/acem14188_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/166422/3/acem14188.pd

Average number of citations for US and UK paper.

<p>US publications (blue) UK publications (red) were evaluated in four categories: overall citation rate (All); independent (Indep); international-corresponding (Intl-C); and international-secondary (Intl-S). Significant differences statistically were seen between: (A) US Indep vs. Intl-C, p<0.01; (b) US Intl-C vs Intl-S, p = 0.04; (C) UK Indep vs.Intl-C, p = 0.01; (D) UK Indep vs. Intl-S, p<0.01; and (E) US Indep vs. UK Indep, p<0.01.</p

Collaborative status of US articles.

<p>Of the 3176 papers generated by the US, 15.6% (494) were international-corresponding (Intl-C), 11.5% (366) were international-secondary (Intl-S), and 72.9% (2316) were independent papers (Indep).</p

Top 10 countries with collaborated with the United States.

<p>Top 10 countries with collaborated with the United States.</p

Top 10 countries with collaborated with the United Kingdom.

<p>Top 10 countries with collaborated with the United Kingdom.</p

Comparison of US and UK articles.

<p>While the United Kingdom (red) collaborates proportionally more than the United States (blue), with 53.4% of their publications the result of international collaborations versus 27.1% in the United States, the United States produced a higher absolute number of publications (3176 versus 616 in the United Kingdom).</p

Collaborative status of UK articles.

<p>Of the 616 articles pulled for the UK, 18.8% (116) were international-corresponding (Intl-C), 34.4% (212) were international-secondary (Intl-S), 46.8% (288) were independent (Indep).</p