key: cord-0031778-c7eqnh98
authors: Dupont, Sarah C.; Chirumamilla, Siri L.; Paras, Alexander T.
title: Preventive Medicine Residents With Concerns About the Recent Article “Governor's Party, Policies, and COVID-19 Outcomes” by Shvetsova et al.
date: 2022-05-18
journal: Am J Prev Med
DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2022.01.005
sha: f17b9ce544e0121c1f3335faee5df2a366ed43a7
doc_id: 31778
cord_uid: c7eqnh98

nan

Preventive Medicine Residents With Concerns About the Recent Article "Governor's Party, Policies, and COVID-19 Outcomes" by Shvetsova et al.

We were intrigued by the title of the paper by Shvetsova et al., "Governor's Party, Policies, and COVID-19 Outcomes: Further Evidence of an Effect," 1 but were disappointed by its lack of sound epidemiologic foundation. We are preventive medicine residents who have reviewed the paper as a part of our didactic curriculum's emphasis on critical appraisal of the literature and have identified 3 fundamental concerns.

First, the design of the study as laid out in the title, abstract, and Methods section seemed to be based on an a priori conclusion that there was a causative relation between political party of state leadership and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outcomes. The conclusions drawn in the Discussion section were not supported by the data and failed to justify a claim of causation using basic criteria of causality.

Second, the study design, as described in the Methods section, seemed to be opaque and open to potential bias. Customary detail was lacking with limited explanation that would allow replication of the study. The absence of discussion of the sources for COVID-19 case counts precluded assessment of the validity of the data. Of further concern, the description of the Policy Protective Index did not explicate that the index was only recently created by the paper's authors and to our knowledge has not been validated previously in a public health research context.

Finally, the tables and figures contained errors and missing labels that challenged interpretation. As a particularly salient example, Figure 3 -commonly referred to as a box plot-had no data labels, was introduced in the Discussion section, and was lacking detail on methods. Rather than enhancing understanding of the data, the figures might actually confuse readers.

Considering these and other concerns, we believe that this article fails to contribute to the general scientific knowledge of the field of preventive medicine and public health and does not provide a sound evidence basis for public health action.

Governor's party, policies, and COVID-19 outcomes: further evidence of an effect

No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this paper.