Are We Writing Accessible Peer Reviewed Publications? Considerations for Public Health, Healthcare, and Public Safety Professionals

Accessible Peer Reviewed Publications

I am currently collaborating with a client on a pair of manuscripts to disseminate methods and findings from our consulting project. As I researched potential target journals for these papers, I was happy to see Frontiers guidelines for authors, as they specifically include accessibility guidance.

This looked like:

• Asking authors to include alternative text (alt text) for all figures and images. They even described why it is important and what good alt text looks like.

• Encouraging authors to make the figures and visual elements of their articles accessible for people who are blind, have low vision, or other disabilities that impact vision. Specifically, Frontiers highlights the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1), regarding color contrast ratios, color selections, and avoiding using color only to communicate information.

The reason the Frontiers guidelines stood out was because I had not seen similar guidance across many publications I was reviewing.

So that got me thinking…what are some key considerations for accessible writing and publishing in our field?

Key Considerations

1.   Open Access Publishing Does Not Equal Accessible Publishing

Open access (OA) is a set of principles and practices through which research outputs like journal articles are distributed online, free of cost or other access barriers. However, that designation does not guarantee that all content is accessible to people with disabilities. A recent paper in Quantitative Science Studies found that the open access journals sampled are not considering disability accessibility in their submission guidelines or open access frameworks. The authors note that “incorporating disability accessibility into open scholarship considerations is critical to bridge, and not exacerbate, information inequalities for people with disabilities.”

2.   Best Practices and Considerations for Journal Content Accessibility

A 2024 editorial by Anne Behler and Glenn Koelling in portal: Libraries and the Academy, describe journal accessibility best practices and considerations.

Some key points:

• There is a difference between minimal requirements and best practices

• Online scholarly journals have layers of accessibility considerations, for example: text, figures and images, hosting website, etc.

• Publication accessibility is influenced by many people and factors including publisher, hosting platform, and editorial staff (e.g., how they write and implement author guidelines).

3.   Planning Questions for Public Health, Healthcare, and Public Safety Professionals

• Authors: Are you searching for accessibility guidance within author instructions? If guidance does not exist, are you still incorporating accessibility guidelines (e.g., WCAG) into your submission?

• Editorial boards: Does your journal include an accessibility statement? Is accessibility guidance included within author instructions? If and how are accessibility standards being enforced for author submissions? Are you discussing accessibility with all relevant partners and vendors?

• Public health professors and instructors: Are you incorporating accessibility planning and standards into your teaching materials and evaluation rubrics for peer-reviewed and professional writing?

I’d Love to Hear from You!

• In your experience with peer-reviewed publications (e.g., as an author, editorial board member, reviewer, etc.) are you seeing accessibility guidelines for authors?

• What peer-reviewed journals are integrating and prioritizing accessibility well?