Policy Committee Meeting 12.4.23

as such any member of the OMA BOT should be able to initiate discussion and research of a position statement topic. Dr. Auriemma agrees with authorship being solely for those who the directly contributed and suggests potentially changing the necessity of unanimous agreement on position statements when developing policy on this matter. Dr. Lazarus shares concerns on the items below in the current state procedural document that Dr. Bays provided for this meeting. o The choice of topics for OMA Position Statements that move forward occurs via a discussion between the OMA President and the Editor-in-Chief of Obesity Pillars. o Authorship of OMA Position Statements is determined by the OMA President (who has likewise been tasked with selecting OMA Task Force members), based upon inviting authors with known expertise or interest in the topic, past willingness to work within a team approach, and a past record of timely completion of authorship tasks. Additionally, BOT members can also volunteer. o Obesity Pillars is allotted a finite number of free slots per year for OMA Position Statements and other Announcements. The number of slots per year is determined by Elsevier (the publisher). The topics for these limited number of potential OMA Position Statements is determined by the OMA President and the Editor in Chief of Obesity Pillars . If there is no room in the journal, the position statement will reside on the website and an email to membership can be sent. Rather than the process as outlined above, Dr. Lazarus suggests that topics should move forward at the discretion of the OMA BOT instead of the sole discretion of the OMA President. Additionally, Dr. Lazarus mentions the scenario by which the OMA President and the Editor-in Chief of Obesity Pillars are the same person. Dr. Bays ensures the group that should that occur, he commits to ensure checks and balances are in place. Dr. Francavilla Brown says as such, to be thorough and thoughtful about the practices for such statements, the OMA should have a policy that reflects this and remains suitable for the next five (+) OMA Presidents as well. Dr. Lazarus suggests the creation of multiple pathways to outline various options for the production of position statements; an urgent pathway, a standard pathway, a web-based pathway and an Obesity Pillars pathway. Dr. Bays highlights that some of the OMA’s peer organizations have yet to release position statements this year, likely due to the overly thorough and cumbersome nature of their internal procedural requirements. Dr. Francavilla Brown stresses the importance of both big picture and the detail-oriented review. She wants to ensure that everyone on the OMA BOT is on the same page for how to provide feedback on the position statements. To address this, Dr. Alexander suggests the implementation

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