COVID-19 messed up my research: Insights from physical activity and nutrition translational research

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to significant challenges in conducting physical activity and nutrition translational research. This encompassed all phases of translational research, including recruitment (e.g., lack of trust in the scientific community), assessment (university regulations restricting in-person assessments), intervention (conversion of face-to-face interventions to online formats), and retention (loss of employment, phone service, or housing among study participants). The COVID-19 pandemic has had varying impacts on research productivity as well. While some groups found the pandemic led to increases in productivity (as evidenced by increases seen in both manuscript and grant submissions), junior faculty, women (particularly caregivers), African American, Asian, and Latinx faculty, and mid-career and senior scientists all faced unique career and personal challenges during this time. This included competing demands on time that interfered with research productivity and mental and physical health stressors. Therefore, in order to ensure we retain promising scientists in the field of translational physical activity and nutrition science, it will be important to consider these challenges when it comes time to review tenure files and grant applications. Reviewers of these applications should note creativity in moving research forward, continued mentoring of students or other faculty, and plans to get back on track after a pause in their ability to conduct impactful physical activity and nutrition work.

It started on December 1, 2020, when I (@briemcgrievy) tweeted out “Can we all just publish a paper called ‘COVID messed up my research’ and then we can all cite it in a year when we're publishing results from our 2020 studies. Like: "We only collected follow-up data on 3 people (1). References: All researchers. ‘COVID messed up my research.’" Within two weeks, the tweet had over 3,600 likes, 450 retweets, and 80 quote retweets. According to Twitter Analytics, the post received 14,239 engagements (any kind of clicks on the tweet). Compare that to my next most popular tweet with 93 engagements, and it is obvious I struck a nerve with the research community. When Dr. Justin Moore (@justinbmoorephd) and Dr. Tanya Halliday (@nutritionnerd) responded to the tweet that they agreed a paper was needed, we decided to turn the tweet into reality.

I, along with Drs. Moore and Halliday, conduct translational research in physical activity and nutrition. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March, all three of us had to make significant adjustments to our various research programs, which involve regular interaction with human subjects, both adults and youth. After living with the new research normal for almost a year now, we present some insights on how we adjusted our work, discuss how the pandemic has impacted certain members of the academic community, and provide some take-aways for the field of physical activity and nutrition research post-pandemic.

Adjusting recruitment, assessment, intervention, and retention activities in the pandemic era

For most of our studies, recruitment, assessment, intervention, and retention considerations became moot in early spring 2020 as research projects across the globe were halted by our institutions. As we collectively gained a better handle on the virus, how it spreads, and how to contain it, many institutions lifted restrictions on conducting human subjects research. Despite being allowed to resume contact with participants, many principal investigators were left with more questions than answers. For example, what is the level of acceptable risk of COVID-19 infection to conduct non-essential research? For many of us, the answer was to implement safety protocols and slowly resume recruitment, but it remained challenging due to research participation being a very low priority, especially among frontline workers, parents with children, and those from low-income communities. These challenges permeated all phases of research. Table 1 details each phase of an intervention study and the various issues associated with that phase as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Table 1:

Each phase of a physical activity and nutrition intervention study and the various issues associated with that phase as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic

Phase of intervention	Issue related to the COVID-19 pandemic
Recruitment	Contacting potential participants when in-person contact is ill advised and strategies such as recruitment flyers are less effective due to stay-at-home orders. Lack of trust in the scientific community. Ethical concerns with interacting with people during a pandemic, especially vulnerable populations, and those with comorbid conditions, such as obesity. Difficulty generating interest in physical activity and nutrition during a time when more fundamental needs are unmet.
Assessment	University regulations restricting in-person assessments. Creating safe environments for participants to come to assessments. Development of remote assessment methods. Adjusting assessment protocols to minimize in-person contact. Removing collection of physiological variables and biological samples.
Intervention	Closure of sites targeted for intervention delivery. Conversion of face-to-face interventions to online formats (which may decrease intervention fidelity).
Retention	Engagement with the intervention during a time of high stress and competing demands. Loss of employment, phone service, or housing.

Note to tenure and promotion, future grant, and manuscript reviewers: Let’s be kind to one another

The pandemic will not just have an impact on diet and physical activity research during this year, but years to come as well. In order to not lose valuable researchers from our field, let’s all keep in mind the struggles that academics faced during this time.

1. Junior faculty

The pre-tenure period in which junior faculty establish their research laboratories and teams, collect preliminary data for larger-scale funding, develop their mentoring strategy, and navigate the competing demands of research, teaching, and service, is a challenging period during ordinary times (1-3). However, the additional research challenges described above have severely impacted junior faculty conducting clinical and translational research. Loss of research productivity for pre-tenure faculty may have long-term ramifications for tenure success (4-7) as delayed data collection will further delay publication of results and grant submissions. Furthermore, junior faculty are typically relying on their start-up funds to cover research staff salaries, student tuition, and stipends, but delays in collecting pilot data could result in start-up funds being exhausted before larger grants can be submitted to continue to fund salaries. Additionally, the inability to network in-person on campus or at conferences could hinder career progression. Forging collaborations and interacting with senior researchers in the field is challenging to replicate in the virtual environment, and can contribute to reduced career advancement for junior faculty (4-6). Lastly, reviews for the teaching effectiveness of new faculty may be negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Junior faculty have had to move courses online with minimal teaching experience. This results in additional course preparation time, thus reducing time available to engage more directly with students (7). Simultaneously, students have reported mental health struggles during the pandemic, with which junior faculty are typically less equipped to deal than with more senior investigators (7, 8). In sum, as they prepare their tenure dossiers, junior faculty members are facing greater uncertainty and left more vulnerable, as they prepare their tenure dossiers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. Women, especially caregivers

While the months during lockdown were a productive time for some researchers, many women, especially caretakers, saw a loss of productivity (9, 10). The increase in schooling children from home and household chores led to a “motherhood penalty,” resulting in a decrease in research productivity (11). During the pandemic, women submitted fewer manuscripts than their male counterparts (9, 12). And while overall manuscript submissions went up during the pandemic, there were more submissions from men than women (13, 14). While the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found no differences in NIH submissions by sex, submissions between May 1, 2020 and June 5, 2020 were 10% higher than that same time from 2019 (15). This combination of increased paper and grant submissions means greater competition for publications and funding. It also represents an increase in service load with more requests for manuscript and grant peer review. And since women tend to perform more service-related academic work than men (16, 17), this increase in peer review may have an impact on women’s ability to complete their own work.

3. Traditionally underrepresented faculty

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected communities of color. The summer of 2020, however, was not just shaped by the global pandemic, but also the unprecedented nationwide protests regarding racial injustice. African American, Asian, and Latinx faculty were therefore dealing with illness and death within their own families and communities alongside the emotional effects of the national unrest occurring in summer 2020 (18). Traditionally underrepresented students often turn to faculty of their own race or ethnicity for support during stressful times (19, 20), which can lead to a disproportionate mentoring workload. The summer of a global pandemic and social unrest also led to an increased awareness for the need to diversify academia (21). Traditionally underrepresented faculty are likely to be the ones to shoulder the burden of initiating and leading diversity initiatives (22-24). This combination of internal service work related to university diversity initiatives and mentoring of traditionally underrepresented students, along with the fact that African American, Asian, and Latinx faculty already shoulder a disproportionate amount of service duties overall (25), will have an impact on tenure and promotion of diverse faculty.

4. Mid-career and senior faculty

Mid-career and senior faculty have not been immune to the impact of the global pandemic on their research. While women overall submitted fewer manuscripts than men during the pandemic, this difference was even more pronounced among mid-career and senior positions (12). Researchers in more advanced stages of their careers often must maintain funding for staff and students. Hiring freezes and furloughs have added to the stress of staff management with concerns over the ability to maintain employment or hire new staff (26, 27). Hiring freezes have also meant faculty positions cannot be filled, leading to an increase in service and teaching among more senior faculty (28). Service duties of more senior faculty often include mentoring responsibilities of junior faculty. With an increase in anxiety among those working in academia, senior faculty are often responsible for ensuring the students and junior faculty they mentor and the staff they employ are mentally healthy (29).

5. General Challenges We All May Be Facing

On top of career-specific stressors caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty are also likely dealing with the same isolation, financial, and relational challenges that are more broadly impacting the US and world populations (30). Reports of mental health and substance use struggles during the pandemic increased during COVID-19’s widespread arrival in the US (31). In addition, salary cuts and furloughs were implemented at universities across the country in response to budget shortfalls (32). With more than 20 million Americans becoming unemployed, underemployed, or furloughed due to the COVID-19 pandemic (33), it is likely that some faculty saw a reduced household income if their other earners’ jobs were negatively impacted in the past year. The COVID-19 pandemic has also contributed to relationship issues, with increases in divorce rates (34, 35) and domestic violence (36, 37). Furthermore, death, illness, or other medical concerns among family could have impacted work during the pandemic (38). The multiple, compounding life stressors on top of job-related stressors, all contribute to a large stress load that can lead to persistent health challenges (39).

Because of these limitations to the ability to move research forward in a timely manner, we make the following suggestions

1. Recommendations for peer review of one another’s work

Even while some groups productivity declined (9, 10, 12), there has been a dramatic increase in most journal submissions, which may again, negatively impact workloads and productivity. While some of this is due to COVID 19-specific papers, a portion of the submissions are a result of increases in productivity among some researchers. For example, submissions to JAMA between January and June 2020 saw 7,000 more submissions as compared to the same time range in 2019 (40). Grant submissions to NIH also saw an increase (15). Those of us reviewing each other’s grants, manuscripts, and tenure files should keep in mind the unique challenges outlined in this commentary that the global pandemic has posed for physical activity and nutrition researchers. Reviewers should look to how researchers were creative in moving some of their research forward, how they continued to mentor students or other faculty, and how they plan to get back on track after a pause in their ability to conduct impactful physical activity and nutrition work.

2. Recommendations to university administration on ways to support your faculty during the pandemic

• Adjust expectations for tenure and promotion: Many universities are doing this already. Adjustments can include extending the tenure clock by an additional year, allowing faculty to exclude teaching reviews from 2020-2021, or allowing faculty to exclude 2020 all together from calculating promotion requirements.

• Provide additional research support: Many universities provided additional funds to help fund research interrupted by COVID-19 or provided specific funds for COVID-19-related research. Institutions should also be mindful of covering costs of personal protective equipment that may be required to continue research or to help cover graduate student assistantships and tuition if grants have expired.

• Ensure adequate teaching support: Many faculty had to move courses online quickly, without any previous online teaching experience. While most of us made do in Spring 2020 with a rapid transition to the online teaching environment, universities should make sure that there are resources on campus (such as a center devoted to teaching and learning) that can help faculty design, teach, and maintain effective online classes.