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What does peer reviewed mean?

7 replies

garlictwist · 19/03/2021 06:21

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does it mean when a study is "peer reviewed"?

OP posts:
FireBelliedToad · 19/03/2021 06:23

It means it's been read by other specialists working in the same or similar field and checked for accuracy, sense, method etc.

Riskybiscuits · 19/03/2021 06:23

Submitted to an academic journal which then sends it out for review by people with relevant experience in the field. They feedback on how soundly the research was conducted and whether the findings from the paper are justified and expressed clearly etc

Orgyofsausages · 19/03/2021 06:23

A lot of schools do peer marking now.

garlictwist · 19/03/2021 06:25

Ah thanks!

OP posts:
Whenthesunshines · 19/03/2021 06:25

When the study is review by someone with similar a similar knowledge of the subject and competency as the author.

Whenthesunshines · 19/03/2021 06:28

@Whenthesunshines

When the study is review by someone with similar a similar knowledge of the subject and competency as the author.
OMG!

I need someone to peer review my posts on MN.

BarbaraofSeville · 19/03/2021 08:29

As above plus whether or not the results are repeatable and due to actual causation, or there was just a correlation that happened by chance or an unrelated factor that was not fully accounted for in the study.

Eg the 'blood clots after vaccination' question.

The first question any scientist/medic would ask of the above would be 'how many blood clots would you expect to see in a population of X million people in any Y week period anyway' because it's not a case of saying 'Person A had the vaccine last week and this week had a blood clot therefore it was due to the vaccine' because blood clots are a common health issue in the general population.

I think one of the regular BBC doctors said that they saw more blood clots in a year amongst their practice list of around ten thousand patients than the 37 reported in however many million people that caused the pause in the vaccine programme in Europe.

Plus if you're making a decision like that, you also have to weigh up the impact of not vaccinating people, which is likely to lead to more COVID cases and hence additional hospitalisations and deaths.

It's very easy to design a bad study that gives nonsensical results and it's actually quite hard to run a scientifically robust study where the only variable is the one that you're testing, especially when looking for the effect on the population as a whole. Hence the importance of peer review.

A good illustration would be to ask Mumsnetters how much they earned and compared the results with the population as a whole.

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