PAPERS SUBMITTED FROM OUTSIDE
AND INSIDE THE UNITED STATES: AN ANALYSIS OF REVIEWER BIAS
Ann M Link
Gastroenterology, American Gastroenterology Association, 7910 Woodmont Ave, 7th Floor, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
Objective: The increasingly international character of journals introduces new issues regarding reviewer bias.
Gastroenterology receives two thirds of its submissions from outside the United States, while two thirds of its reviewers
are from the United States. Moreover, the acceptance rate of non-US papers is 12% lower than that for US papers. Therefore,
this study assessed whether domestic reviewers or international reviewers evaluate manuscripts differently, depending on
whether the manuscripts are submitted from outside the United States or from the United States.
Design: A retrospective analysis of all original submissions received by Gastroenterology in 1995 and 1996. Reviewers
ranked manuscripts as accept, provisionally accept, reject with resubmission, or reject. Chi-square analysis was used to compare
domestic and international reviewers and papers.
Results: The percentage of international manuscripts placed in each decision category by domestic reviewers (n=2,355) and
nondomestic reviewers (n=1,297) was nearly identical (P=.31). However, domestic reviewers recommended acceptance of papers submitted
by US authors more often than non-US reviewers (P=.001): accept: 7% vs 4%; provisionally accept: 31% for both; reject with
resubmission: 26% vs 22%; reject: 35% vs 44%. Nondomestic reviewers ranked US papers slightly more favorably than non-US papers (P=.09),
while domestic reviewers ranked US papers much more favorably (P=.00l).
Conclusions: Reviewers from the United States do not evaluate papers submitted from outside the United States differently
than non-US reviewers. Both US and non-US reviewers evaluate papers submitted by US authors more favorably, with domestic reviewers
having a significant preference for domestic papers.
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