What happens to the manuscripts that have not been accepted for publication in Occupational and Environmental Medicine?

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the fate of manuscripts rejected by Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM). METHODS A Medline search was conducted, up to March 2001, to find out whether and where articles submitted to OEM in 1995, 1996, and 1997, but not accepted for publication, were published. The articles were matched by authors and title, sometimes using the abstract to help decide whether the published article was the one that had been previously submitted to OEM. RESULTS Out of 405 manuscripts rejected (44% of those submitted), 218 articles (54%) were traced in 72 different journals, with more than half being published in seven other major journals dealing with occupational and environmental health (rather than in specialty journals). Most papers were published within 2 years of their initial submission to OEM. Only a small proportion (10%) were published in a journal with a higher impact factor than OEM (1.96 in 1999). CONCLUSION More than half the articles rejected by OEM found their way into the scientific literature covered by Medline. This figure is comparable with the few available data from other journals. It would be interesting to know the fate of articles published by OEM before they were submitted to our journal.