Abstract
Objective:
Publication science is the scholarly study of various aspects of the academic publishing process. Its applications to COVID-19 literature have been limited. Here, we describe COVID-19 submissions to, and resulting articles published by, the journal Public Health Reports (PHR), an important resource for US public health practice.
Methods:
We reviewed PHR’s COVID-19 submissions and articles published between March 27, 2020, and March 27, 2023. We coded each article for article type, author affiliation, the categories listed in PHR’s call for COVID-19 papers, and the public health emergency preparedness and response capabilities from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Results:
During the study period, PHR received 1545 COVID-19 submissions and published 190 of those articles in a collection, COVID-19 Response. The COVID-19 Response collection included 102 research articles, 29 case study/practice articles, and 24 commentaries. The corresponding author of more than half (52.1%; n = 99) of the articles was affiliated with academia. By the categories listed in PHR’s call for COVID-19 papers, 51 articles addressed health disparities, 38 addressed public health surveillance, and 34 addressed COVID-19 vaccination. By the CDC public health emergency preparedness and response capabilities, 87 articles addressed public health surveillance and epidemiologic investigation, 38 addressed community preparedness, and 32 addressed community recovery. The percentage of articles focused on policy/law was higher early in the pandemic (2020-2021) than later (2022-2023) (9.5% vs <3.0%). During the latter period, articles largely focused on vaccination (12.8%) and contact tracing (10.6%).
Conclusions:
Articles published in PHR’s COVID-19 Response collection covered a broad range of topics and were authored by contributors from diverse organizations. Our characterization of the COVID-19 output of a representative US public health practice journal can help academic publishing better address informational needs of public health responders.
Keywords: COVID-19, Public Health Reports, pandemic planning and response
The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic created a need for scientific research to inform public health practice. Studies on COVID-19’s genetics, etiology, epidemiology, and impact on various facets of human life began to emerge. Nearly 75 000 scientific articles on COVID-19 were published in the first 11 months of 2020 alone, 1 and the global scholarly literature saw in 2020 the largest single-year increase in history. 2 The outpouring of COVID-19 research incentivized the publishing industry to publish the most visible, impactful, and influential data. 2 The speed and volume at which COVID-19 information appeared caused several problems, such as an infodemic and concerns about spreading misinformation. An infodemic, as defined by the World Health Organization, is an overabundance of information—some accurate and some not—that makes it difficult to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance. 3
As the nation’s oldest public health journal and the official journal of the Office of the US Surgeon General and the US Public Health Service, Public Health Reports (PHR) has long been a reputable source of public health information among public health practitioners in the United States. 4 On March 27, 2020, 16 days after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, 5 PHR announced an open call for papers on the public health response to COVID-19, including challenges, lessons learned, and opportunities for public health practice. 6 Topics listed in the call for COVID-19 papers included disparities in testing, treatment, and survival outcomes; COVID-19 surveillance methods; the impact of COVID-19 on mental health; contact tracing/case investigation; partnerships; and more. 6 After 1 year, the call for COVID-19 papers was updated to reflect changes in the pandemic and the public health response to it (Figure 1). Updates included 2 additional topic areas: vaccination and post–COVID-19 conditions (hereinafter referred to as “long COVID”). Accepted submissions, received in response to the call for COVID-19 papers, were published on a rolling basis and were fast-tracked for publication. All submissions underwent standard PHR peer review. Published articles on COVID-19 were added to an online collection, COVID-19 Response. 7
Figure 1.
Public Health Reports “COVID-19: Challenges, Lessons Learned, and Opportunities for Public Health Practice” call for papers as of March 27, 2023.
Several online resources track general trends in published COVID-19 literature, 8 and various organizations have analyzed data on their COVID-19 scientific publications.9,10 Collections of published COVID-19 content also exist. 11 To our knowledge, our study is the first to systematically analyze the content and trends in COVID-19 publications of a scientific journal with a mission to advance public health practice in the United States.
Methods
We reviewed articles in the PHR COVID-19 Response collection 7 published online from March 27, 2020 (the day of PHR’s call for COVID-19 papers announcement), through March 27, 2023, and coded each article for corresponding author affiliation, article type, the bullet points listed in PHR’s call for COVID-19 papers (Figure 1), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) 15 emergency preparedness and response capabilities. 12 Articles were included in the collection based on the centrality of COVID-19 to the study’s subject. The same criterion was used to determine whether a paper submitted to the journal (which may or may not have mentioned that it was responding to the call for COVID-19 papers) was a COVID-19 submission. One author (N.M.H.) coded each article according to the PHR categories and CDC capabilities, and a second author (A.K.) reviewed coding for accuracy.
We characterized articles in the collection by article type, which included research articles, case study/practice articles, commentaries, brief reports, public health methodology articles, Surgeon General’s Perspective articles, public health evaluations, editorials, special articles, and contributions to the departments of Law and the Public’s Health and From the Schools and Programs of Public Health. Research articles report on original research to increase knowledge, reaffirm results of previous work, or solve new or ongoing problems 13 ; case study/practice articles describe public health programs or initiatives, their status, outcomes, and lessons learned 13 ; commentaries present opinions on current or emerging public health issues, important scientific/program developments, policy issues, or current scientific data 13 ; and editorials present opinions on an issue, respond to a topic, and are generally meant to influence opinion. 14 The special article coding category included PHR year-in-review articles4,15,16 and other articles published by PHR staff. 17 To further examine publication trends, we divided each year into quarters (January–March, April–June, July–September, October–December) and analyzed the number of articles and types of articles published online during each quarter.
We analyzed our published COVID-19 articles according to their responsiveness to PHR’s call for COVID-19 papers. We condensed each bullet point listed in the call for COVID-19 papers, which reflects the pandemic’s intersection with the journal’s scope and mission, 18 into 22 concise, descriptive coding categories (Table 1) and determined which of these categories best aligned with each article’s primary focus. Some articles fit under multiple coding categories. To examine trends in topics PHR published on, we reviewed the number of articles in various call for COVID-19 papers categories by year.
Table 1.
Bullet points of the Public Health Reports call for papers “COVID-19: Challenges, Lessons Learned, and Opportunities for Public Health Practice,” corresponding coding categories, and number of articles in each category, March 27, 2020–March 27, 2023
| Bullet point | Coding category | No. of articles (%) (N = 190) |
|---|---|---|
| Disparities in testing, treatment, and survival outcomes for racial or ethnic minority populations and other populations at risk | Disparities | 53 (27.9) |
| Surveillance methods used for detecting, characterizing, and monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic | Surveillance | 38 (20.0) |
| Vaccination, including effectiveness, uptake, attitudes/perceptions/knowledge, hesitancy, disparities, and policies | Vaccination | 32 (16.8) |
| Impact of public health practices implemented by federal and STLT public health organizations | Federal and STLT impact | 29 (15.3) |
| Contact tracing, including use of digital tools | Contact tracing | 25 (13.2) |
| Impact on people in non–health care congregate settings or custodial settings (eg, retirement or independent living communities, incarceration settings, homeless shelters, educational institutions, cruise ships, military housing) | Non–health care settings | 23 (12.1) |
| Impact on people experiencing mental or emotional health problems (eg, increased stress or anxiety, feelings of loneliness, suicidal ideation or attempts during shelter-in-place mandates) | Mental health | 22 (11.6) |
| Use and effectiveness of screening and response protocols | Screening and response | 21 (11.1) |
| Impact of COVID-19 on academic public health or the public health workforce | Academia/public health workforce | 18 (9.5) |
| Impact on people in specific types of health care facilities (eg, hospitals, clinics, long-term–care facilities) | Health care settings | 15 (7.9) |
| Partnerships with traditional and nontraditional public health partners | Partnerships | 15 (7.9) |
| Impact of social or economic factors on transmission | Social/economic impact on transmission | 14 (7.4) |
| Policy or legal approaches that have a direct impact on health services, health behaviors, or population health | Policy/law | 13 (6.8) |
| Health communication regarding information and misinformation about COVID-19 in the digital age | Communication | 13 (6.8) |
| Unintended consequences | Unintended consequences | 10 (5.3) |
| Use of electronic health record data from clinical settings that can help guide public health practice | Electronic health record data | 10 (5.3) |
| Ethics dilemmas and human rights challenges in COVID-19–related clinical decisions (eg, use of ventilators) or public health decisions (eg, social distancing and personal liberty, release of patients’ demographic information, personal privacy concerns) | Ethics | 8 (4.2) |
| Infectious disease modeling on which to base public health practice | Modeling | 3 (1.6) |
| Public health impacts of economic changes caused by the pandemic response | Economic impact on public health | 3 (1.6) |
| Testing by public health and private laboratories | Public health laboratories | 2 (1.1) |
| Effectiveness of US public health policies and practices, compared with those of other nations | United States versus global | 1 (0.5) |
| Long COVID (health consequences present ≥4 weeks after infection), including incidence, risk and protective factors (such as sociodemographic and vaccination status), physical and mental health burden, epidemiology and surveillance (including in diverse populations), health economics, and care access | Long COVID | 0 |
Abbreviation: STLT, state, tribal, local, or territorial.
To understand our collection’s utility to epidemic responders, we categorized collection articles according to their relevance to CDC’s 15 public health emergency preparedness and response capabilities, which serve as a national standard for public health preparedness planning. 12 Several articles fit with more than 1 CDC emergency preparedness and response capability.
This project did not involve human data or participants; therefore, its institutional review board assessment was not necessary per the policy of the Office of Science and Medicine at the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.
Results
The first article in the COVID-19 Response collection was published on June 3, 2020. 19 It was a commentary calling for greater collaboration between schools and programs of public health and the local, state, and federal public health practice community. After that, PHR gradually ramped up its COVID-19 content. From March 27, 2020, to March 27, 2023, PHR published 495 peer-reviewed articles (excluding letters to the editor, corrigenda, acknowledgement of reviewers, and In Memoriam articles), 190 of which were on COVID-19 (per collection’s inclusion criteria; 38.4%)—41 COVID-19 articles were published in year 1 of the call for COVID-19 papers (March 27, 2020–March 31, 2021), 62 in year 2 (April 1, 2021–March 31, 2022), and 87 in year 3 (April 1, 2022–March 27, 2023). The greatest number of COVID-19 articles were published in July–September 2022 (38 articles). The fewest COVID-19 articles were published in April–June 2020 and July–August 2020 (2 articles per quarter). While COVID-19 publications increased during the call’s 3 years, the number of COVID-19 submissions declined from year to year during that period. PHR received 1545 COVID-19 submissions during the study period—615 submissions were received in year 1, 604 in year 2, and 327 in year 3 (Figure 2).
Figure 2.
Number of COVID-19 submissions and published articles per quarter, March 27, 2020–March 27, 2023. Public Health Reports received 1 COVID-19 submission between March 27, 2020, and March 30, 2020, which is not displayed in the figure.
Analysis of COVID-19 Collection Articles by Article Type
Among the 190 published COVID-19 articles, most were research articles (n = 102; 53.7%); followed by case study/practice articles (n = 29; 15.3%); commentaries (n = 24; 12.6%); brief reports (n = 11; 5.8%); public health methodology articles (n = 8; 4.2%); public health evaluations, special articles, and Surgeon General’s Perspective articles (n = 3 each; 1.6%); editorials, contributions to the From the Schools and Programs of Public Health department, and contributions to the Law and the Public’s Health department (n = 2 each; 1.1%); and topical reviews (n = 1; 0.5%) (Table 2). Although research articles comprised the greatest percentage of published content overall during the 3-year study period, no COVID-19 research articles were published during the first 7 months after the call for COVID-19 papers was announced. PHR published its first COVID-19 research article on October 27, 2020. 20 This article examined asymptomatic and atypical COVID-19 infection and transmission by tracing the contacts of the first 2 patients confirmed to have COVID-19 in Illinois. Research articles became the predominant article type in the collection (>50% of articles published per quarter) starting in July–September 2021, and research articles continued to be the predominant article type during each subsequent quarter through January–March 2023.
Table 2.
Number of articles corresponding to each article type represented in the Public Health Reports COVID-19 Response collection, March 27, 2020–March 27, 2023
| Article type | No. (%) (N = 190) |
|---|---|
| Research | 102 (53.7) |
| Case Study/Practice | 29 (15.3) |
| Commentary | 24 (12.6) |
| Brief Report | 11 (5.8) |
| Public Health Methodology | 8 (4.2) |
| Public Health Evaluation | 3 (1.6) |
| Special Article a | 3 (1.6) |
| Surgeon General’s Perspective | 3 (1.6) |
| Editorial | 2 (1.1) |
| From the Schools and Programs of Public Health | 2 (1.1) |
| Law and the Public’s Health | 2 (1.1) |
| Topical Review | 1 (0.5) |
Analysis of COVID-19 Response Collection Articles by Author Affiliation
One hundred eighty-eight corresponding authors of articles in PHR’s COVID-19 Response collection were from US institutions; 2 were from other countries, including 1 from Canada (University of Toronto) and 1 from Portugal (University of Porto). The 188 US authors were affiliated with academia (n = 99; 52.7%); federal government (eg, CDC, US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institutes of Health, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health; n = 46; 24.5%); state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) public health departments (n = 20; 10.6%); the health care sector (n = 14; 7.4%); nonprofit organizations (n = 7; 3.7%); and private organizations (n = 2; 1.1%).
Categorization of Articles by PHR’s Call for COVID-19 Papers Categories
Of the 190 articles in the collection, representing 22 call for COVID-19 papers coding categories, 53 (27.9%) were categorized into the disparities category, followed by 38 (20.0%) into surveillance, 32 (16.8%) into vaccination, and 29 (15.3%) into federal and STLT impact. Categories represented least in the collection were public health laboratories (2 articles), US versus global (1 article), and long COVID (0 articles) (Table 1). During the first year of PHR’s call for COVID-19 papers (March 27, 2020–March 31, 2021), 9.5% (7 of 74) of COVID-19 articles were coded as policy/law. After year 1, discussion of policy/law in the COVID-19 Response collection decreased (<3% of articles in years 2 and 3). As the pandemic evolved, PHR published an increasing number of COVID-19 articles on vaccination and contact tracing. In year 3 (April 1, 2022–March 27, 2023), 23 of 180 (12.8%) COVID-19 articles addressed vaccination and 19 (10.6%) addressed contact tracing. Fewer COVID-19 articles addressed vaccination (1 [1.4%] and 8 [7.0%], respectively) and contact tracing (4 [5.4%] and 2 [1.8%], respectively) in years 1 and 2 than in year 3 (Table 3).
Table 3.
COVID-19 articles published in Public Health Reports, by COVID-19 call for papers category a and year, March 27, 2020–March 27, 2023
| Category | No. (%) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 b | Year 2 c | Year 3 d | |
| Disparities | 12 (16.2) | 17 (14.9) | 24 (13.3) |
| Surveillance | 5 (6.8) | 15 (13.2) | 18 (10.0) |
| Vaccination | 1 (1.4) | 8 (7.0) | 23 (12.8) |
| Federal and STLT impact | 7 (9.5) | 7 (6.1) | 15 (8.3) |
| Contact tracing | 4 (5.4) | 2 (1.8) | 19 (10.6) |
| Non–health care settings | 4 (5.4) | 10 (8.8) | 9 (5.0) |
| Mental health | 4 (5.4) | 8 (7.0) | 10 (5.6) |
| Screening and response | 5 (6.8) | 5 (4.4) | 11 (6.1) |
| Academia/public health workforce | 5 (6.8) | 5 (4.4) | 8 (4.4) |
| Health care settings | 3 (4.1) | 5 (4.4) | 7 (3.9) |
| Partnerships | 3 (4.1) | 6 (5.3) | 6 (3.3) |
| Social/economic impact on transmission | 5 (6.8) | 3 (2.6) | 6 (3.3) |
| Communication | 2 (2.7) | 5 (4.4) | 6 (3.3) |
| Policy/law | 7 (9.5) | 3 (2.6) | 3 (1.7) |
| Electronic health record data | 1 (1.4) | 4 (3.5) | 5 (2.8) |
| Unintended consequences | 4 (5.4) | 3 (2.6) | 3 (1.7) |
| Ethics | 1 (1.4) | 3 (2.6) | 4 (2.2) |
| Economic impact on public health | 1 (1.4) | 0 | 2 (1.1) |
| Modeling | 0 | 3 (2.6) | 0 |
| Public health laboratories | 0 | 1 (0.9) | 1 (0.6) |
| United States versus global | 0 | 1 (0.9) | 0 |
| Long COVID | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 74 (100.0) | 114 (100.0) | 180 (100.0) |
Abbreviation: STLT, state, tribal, local, or territorial.
Categories are sorted by 3-year totals (Table 1).
Year 1 is March 27, 2020–March 31, 2021.
Year 2 is April 1–March 31, 2022.
Year 3 is April 1, 2022–March 27, 2023.
Categorization of COVID-19 Response Collection Articles by CDC Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Capabilities
Of the 190 articles in the collection, representing 15 CDC emergency preparedness and response capabilities, 84 (44.2%) were categorized into public health surveillance and epidemiologic investigation, followed by 38 (20.0%) into community preparedness, 35 (18.4%) into community recovery, and 27 (14.2%) into medical countermeasure dispensing and administration. The least represented capabilities in the collection were public health laboratory testing (5 articles), medical material management and distribution (2 articles), and volunteer management (2 articles) (Table 4).
Table 4.
Articles in the Public Health Reports COVID-19 Response collection, by CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response capabilities, a March 27, 2020–March 27, 2023
| Capability | No. (%) (N = 190) |
|---|---|
| Public health surveillance and epidemiologic investigation | 84 (44.2) |
| Community preparedness | 38 (20.0) |
| Community recovery | 35 (18.4) |
| Medical countermeasure dispensing and administration | 27 (14.2) |
| Mass care | 18 (9.5) |
| Nonpharmaceutical interventions | 17 (9.0) |
| Emergency public information and warning | 12 (6.3) |
| Responder safety and health | 11 (5.8) |
| Medical surge | 11 (5.8) |
| Information sharing | 10 (5.3) |
| Emergency operations coordination | 7 (3.7) |
| Fatality management | 7 (3.7) |
| Public health laboratory testing | 5 (2.6) |
| Medical material management and distribution | 2 (1.1) |
| Volunteer management | 2 (1.1) |
Abbreviation: CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Data source for CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response capabilities: CDC. 12
Discussion
In March 2020, PHR announced an open call for COVID-19 papers. During the 3 years after publication of this call for papers, PHR received 1545 COVID-19 submissions. One hundred ninety of those articles were published and organized into a collection, COVID-19 Response, on PHR’s website. Submission numbers were similar during years 1 and 2 and started to decline during year 3, likely as a result of the pandemic’s winding down 21 and saturation of research on COVID-19. 22 The number of articles published increased during years 1-3, likely due to COVID-19 papers from the early submissions’ peak moving through the production pipeline. 4 We anticipate an eventual drop in new COVID-19 publications as submission numbers continue to decline.
Analysis of COVID-19 Response Collection Articles by Article Type
Early in the pandemic, most COVID-19 publications in PHR were case study/practice articles and commentaries. The first research article was published on October 27, 2020, 7 months after the call for COVID-19 papers was released. Research articles were rare among early COVID-19 publications, likely because original research requires more funding and takes more time to complete than, for example, commentaries or descriptive case studies. Research may also require institutional review board approval and additional steps to ensure participant safety, cooperation, and data collection. After research articles started to appear in PHR’s COVID-19 Response collection, they gradually became the predominant article type. This trend is consistent with research articles representing the most frequent article type among all PHR published content. 4
Analysis of COVID-19 Response Collection by Author Affiliation
Most authors of COVID-19 articles were affiliated with academia and federal offices. The breakdown of author affiliations of COVID-19 articles was similar to the breakdown of author affiliations of all published PHR content.4,15,16 Nearly one-quarter of authors of COVID-19 articles were affiliated with the federal government, but the first article authored by a federal employee was not published until October 27, 2020. Delayed publication of articles authored by federal employees may have been a result of federal staff having to prioritize early practical response over scholarly publishing and, perhaps, to delays with federal clearance due, in part, to understaffing and conflicting priorities.
COVID-19 Response Collection’s Coverage of the Categories of PHR’s Call for COVID-19 Papers
The most frequent categories in PHR’s COVID-19 Response collection—disparities, surveillance, and vaccination—aligned with the most addressed topics among all PHR content. 4 In 2022, the top 3 topic areas of all PHR content were infectious diseases (including vaccination), disparities, and public health surveillance. These topic areas were also among the most discussed in 2020 and 2021.15,16 The persistence of these topics through all PHR content and the COVID-19 Response collection reflects sustained attention to disparities, vaccination, and surveillance in the field of public health and the journal’s interest in these areas according to its mission and scope. Health disparities are not new in the field of public health, but their discussion increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as the virus caused various health disparities to become more apparent and severe. 23 Vaccination was also widely discussed throughout the pandemic as questions emerged about new vaccine science, regulations, and mass administration. It was a frequent topic in both scholarly literature 24 and public discourse.25,26
Policy/law was discussed more in the COVID-19 Response collection during the first year after PHR’s call for COVID-19 papers was announced (March 27, 2020–March 31, 2021) than during the second 2 years. Discussion of this topic early in the pandemic likely reflects the rapid evolution of, and uncertainty surrounding, COVID-19 policies, including those related to face mask mandates, business/school reopening plans, and community care. As the pandemic response progressed, fewer articles commented on evolving issues related to policy/law, and more articles discussed research on mitigation strategies such as vaccination and contact tracing. During the third year of PHR’s call for COVID-19 papers (April 1, 2022–March 27, 2023), articles coded for vaccination and contact tracing were highly represented in the COVID-19 Response collection.
The least discussed topics in the collection were long COVID and the effectiveness of US public health policies and practices, compared with those of other nations. PHR primarily focuses on US public health. Although the journal accepts papers that tie US public health to that of other nations and, anecdotally, has received many international submissions on COVID-19, most of these articles were deemed out of scope because PHR’s primary mission is to advance public health in the United States. PHR has not yet published any articles on long COVID, but the journal received several submissions on this topic that are currently in review. Long COVID—broadly defined as the signs, symptoms, and conditions that persist after initial COVID-19 infection 27 —and the long-lasting impacts of COVID-19 are the subject of ongoing research, and we anticipate that, with time, PHR will publish articles on these topics as well. 28
The COVID-19 Response Collection’s Coverage of CDC’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Capabilities
Public health surveillance and epidemiologic investigation, community preparedness, and community recovery were the most frequent CDC emergency preparedness and response capabilities in PHR’s COVID-19 Response collection. Medical material management and distribution and volunteer management were the least frequently coded capabilities (2 articles each). Along with being the most commonly coded for capability in the COVID-19 Response collection, public health surveillance and community preparedness were the most coded capabilities among PHR’s historical articles on emerging viral epidemics in the United States. 17 This observation is consistent with PHR’s historic interest in disease surveillance. 17 The community preparedness capability focuses on the ability of communities to prepare for, withstand, and recover from public health incidents in both the short and long term. This capability, as well as community recovery, were widely addressed in the COVID-19 Response collection as communities faced the emerging and rapidly changing threat of COVID-19. The community recovery capability included the subtopic of mental health, another major health concern that accompanied the pandemic.29,30
Meites et al. 9 recently classified CDC’s publications on COVID-19 by using 7 public health science priority topic areas in the agency’s COVID-19 Public Health Science Agenda. These topics included testing; prevention strategies; natural history, transmission, breakthrough infections, and reinfections; vaccines; health equity; variants; and post–COVID-19 conditions. This classification overlapped with the bullet points of PHR’s call for COVID-19 papers in such areas as testing, vaccines, and equity; included research-focused areas absent from our call, such as natural history and variants; and failed to capture our more practice-aligned bullet points, such as surveillance, local public health practices, mental health, policy, workforce, pedagogy, and others. As we did, Meites et al found equity and vaccination among their most frequently addressed topics.
Future Directions
Moving forward, we plan to review PHR’s COVID-19 submissions in greater detail to learn more about their numbers, topics—including in comparison with published content—and acceptance rates. We would also like to characterize authors’ presubmission inquiries and editor in chief’s (EIC’s) responses to them. Reviewing author emails and responses could inform us about whether authors actually submitted articles after emailing the EIC and whether EIC email responses influenced the submission. Along with further evaluation of submissions, continued monitoring of COVID-19 publications will allow us to determine if and when to revise our call for COVID-19 papers.
Conclusion
During the past 3 years (March 27, 2020–March 27, 2023), PHR published extensively and impactfully on COVID-19 in the United States, covering a broad range of topics. Our call for COVID-19 papers, resulting COVID-19 Response collection, and analysis of this collection can serve as a resource to pandemic responders, public health practitioners/researchers, and other scientific journals looking to increase reach on specific topics through similar calls for papers.
Footnotes
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding: The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD: Noelle M. Harada, MPH 
https://orcid.org/0009-0004-5565-1027
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