Annette Flanagin
Annette Flanagin, RN, MA, FAAN, is Executive Managing Editor and Vice President of Editorial Operations, for JAMA and the JAMA Network. Ms Flanagin serves as the Executive Director of the International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication and as Co-Director of the African Journal Partnership Program. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and a Past President of the Council of Science Editors. Ms Flanagin has co-developed a number of guidelines and policies to guide authors, editors, and publishers in scientific publication and is a committee member and author of the AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors and a co-editor of Principles of Scientific Writing and Biomedical Publication. She participates in research, lectures, and publishes on issues related to scientific publication.
Session
Topic/Theme
The integrity of scholarly health information is facing unprecedented disruption. Once unquestioned sources such as PubMed, the CDC, and the NIH are now vulnerable to censorship, politicization, and deliberate misinformation campaigns. These pressures erode trust in authoritative databases and journals, creating ripple effects across research, clinical practice, and public health communication. Public trust in science has been declining for years and has sharply deteriorated in recent times.
This panel will examine how health sciences librarians and publishers can respond to these challenges and leverage them as opportunities to demonstrate their essential role.
Panel Overview
Librarian Responses to Disruption
Critically assess the evolving role of health sciences librarians in countering censorship and misinformation. Positioned at the nexus of teaching, clinical practice support, and research, librarians are equipped to confront these changes and to empower and educate learners, clinicians, and faculty to recognize and resist compromised information. Librarians can leverage disruptions and create strategic opportunities to advocate for evidence integrity and reinforce their value within clinical and research environments.
Monitoring Trusted Sources
Discuss the need and strategies for monitoring health information sources, such as PubMed and scholarly journals, to detect and interpret shifts in content integrity while developing strategies for communicating these findings to healthcare stakeholders and presenting viable alternative sources.
Publisher Perspective
Gain insight from a scholarly publisher on efforts to maintain quality and credibility in health information, including editorial safeguards and transparency initiatives.
Following brief presentations, a Q&A will allow participants to engage directly with panelists on practical approaches to safeguarding scholarly integrity.