Abstract
The Editor of Ecopsychology is officially retracting the article entitled, “Water Scarcity May Lead to Poor Mental Health: A Community-Focused Study in Rural El Salvador,” by Carlo Lai, Gaia Romana Pellicano, Hilda Méndez, Bartolo Atilio Castellanos, Elpiniki Pomoni, Manuela Tomai, Viviana Langher, Federica La Longa, and Massimo Crescimbene; Ecopsychology, 2020; epub Oct 26, 2020; http://doi.org/10.1089/eco.2020.0042.
After the online publication of the article, the Journal Editor received correspondence from the authors indicating that, through a series of miscommunications amongst them, it was discovered that formal Internal Review Board approvals were not properly secured prior to the study taking place or to the submission of the article for peer review in Ecopsychology, despite a statement in the paper indicating such approvals were in place. Upon discovering this violation, the authors sought — and received — post-publication approvals from their institutional Internal Review Board at Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). It is important to note, however, that informed consent was indeed obtained from each participant in the study.
Though the Journal, its Editor, and its Publisher applaud the authors for self-reporting this situation, it remains a clear violation of proper and standard protocols for studies containing human subjects. Therefore, the Journal officially retracts the paper.
Ecopsychology, its Editors, and its Publisher are committed to upholding the strictest standards of the scientific record and the community it serves and will not tolerate any improprieties or violations of proper scientific publishing conventions.