Green Science Policy Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA.
Environ Health. 2023 Jul 18;22(1):47. doi: 10.1186/s12940-023-00997-6.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are the subject of a growing body of research with the potential to positively impact public and ecological health. However, to effect positive change, findings must be communicated beyond the scientific community.
We sought to (a) evaluate the relationships between communications strategy, media attention, and scholarly citations of PFAS research and (b) offer guidance for researchers and communications professionals who would like to publicize future work and increase its impact.
We analyzed 273 peer-reviewed epidemiological studies on PFAS human health impacts with publication years 2018-2020, as collected by a pre-existing database. We investigated whether a press release was issued, open-access status, abstract and press release readability, timing of publication and press release distribution, journal impact factor, study type and sample size, statistical significance of finding(s), number of scholarly citations, and the Altmetric Attention Score (a measure of media attention).
Of papers reporting a statistically significant association with health harm, those with a press release received 20 times more media attention (as assessed by Altmetric scores) than those that did not. However, only 6.2% of all papers and 7.8% of significant papers issued one. Among papers with a press release, media attention was positively correlated with better abstract and press release readability and speed in issuing the press release. Scholarly citations were positively correlated with media attention, presence of a press release, and open-access status.
Most papers with significant findings on PFAS are published without a press release and receive little or no media attention. This reduces the likelihood that important research is reaching the public and decisionmakers who can translate science into action. Issuing a press release and receiving media attention also appear to increase scholarly citations. We provide recommendations for authors to increase the reach and impact of future papers.
全氟和多氟烷基物质（PFAS）是越来越多研究的主题，这些研究有可能对公共和生态健康产生积极影响。然而，要想产生积极的变化，研究结果必须超越科学界进行传播。
我们旨在(a) 评估沟通策略、媒体关注度与 PFAS 研究的学术引用之间的关系，以及 (b) 为希望宣传未来工作并提高其影响力的研究人员和传播专业人员提供指导。
我们分析了 273 项关于 PFAS 对人类健康影响的同行评议流行病学研究，这些研究的出版年份为 2018-2020 年，这些研究是由一个预先存在的数据库收集的。我们调查了是否发布了新闻稿、是否为开放获取状态、摘要和新闻稿的可读性、发表和发布新闻稿的时间、期刊影响因子、研究类型和样本量、研究结果的统计学意义、学术引用数量以及 Altmetric 关注度（一种衡量媒体关注度的指标）。
在报告与健康危害有统计学关联的论文中，发布新闻稿的论文获得的媒体关注度（根据 Altmetric 得分评估）比未发布新闻稿的论文高 20 倍。然而，只有 6.2%的论文和 7.8%的有统计学意义的论文发布了新闻稿。在发布新闻稿的论文中，媒体关注度与更好的摘要和新闻稿可读性以及更快地发布新闻稿呈正相关。学术引用与媒体关注度、发布新闻稿和开放获取状态呈正相关。
大多数发表关于 PFAS 的具有重要发现的论文都没有发布新闻稿，也很少或没有得到媒体关注。这降低了重要研究成果能够到达可以将科学转化为行动的公众和决策者的可能性。发布新闻稿和获得媒体关注似乎也会增加学术引用。我们为作者提供了增加未来论文影响力的建议。
