Requirements of health policy and services journals for authors to disclose financial and non-financial conflicts of interest: a cross-sectional study

Khamis, Assem M.; Hakoum, Maram B; Bou-Karroum, Lama; Ali, Ahmed; Guyatt, Gordon; El‐Jardali, Fadi; Akl, Elie A.

doi:10.1186/s12961-017-0244-2

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…To identify primary studies, we considered 72 journals listed under the ‘Health Policy and Services’ (HPS) category in Web of Science as of June 2016 [ 15 ]. We searched for primary studies (e.g.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first group consisted of all journals listed under the category of HPS by Web of Science as of June 2016. We considered only journals that had an online submission system to review their policies on websites and during the submission process [ 15 ]. That resulted in the exclusion of one inactive journal and one active journal that published by invitation only and had no information on reporting of funding on their website.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The reporting of funding in health policy and systems research: a cross-sectional study

Khamis

Bou-Karroum

Hakoum

et al. 2018

Health Res Policy Sys

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BackgroundMajor research-reporting statements, such as PRISMA and CONSORT, require authors to provide information about funding. The objectives of this study were (1) to assess the reporting of funding in health policy and systems research (HPSR) papers and (2) to assess the funding reporting policies of journals publishing on HPSR.MethodsWe conducted two cross-sectional surveys for papers published in 2016 addressing HPSR (both primary studies and systematic reviews) and for journals publishing on HPSR (both journals under the ‘Health Policy and Services’ (HPS) category in the Web of Science, and non-HPS journals that published on HPSR). Teams of two reviewers selected studies and abstracted data in duplicate and independently. We conducted descriptive analyses and a regression analysis to investigate the association between reporting of funding by papers and the journal’s characteristics.ResultsWe included 400 studies (200 systematic reviews and 200 primary studies) that were published in 198 journals. Approximately one-third (31%) of HPSR papers did not report on funding. Of those that did, only 11% reported on the role of funders (15% of systematic reviews and 7% of primary studies). Of the 198 journals publishing on HPSR, 89% required reporting of the source of funding. Of those that did, about one-third (34%) required reporting of the role of funders. Journals classified under the HPS category (n = 72) were less likely than non-HPS journals that published HPSR studies (n = 142) to require information on the role of funders (15% vs. 32%). We did not find any of the journals’ characteristics to be associated with the reporting of funding by papers.ConclusionsDespite the majority of journals publishing on HPSR requiring the reporting of funding, approximately one-third of HPSR papers did not report on the funding source. Moreover, few journals publishing on HPSR required the reporting of the role of funders, and few HPSR papers reported on that role.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The reporting of funding in health policy and systems research: a cross-sectional study

Khamis

Bou-Karroum

Hakoum

et al. 2018

Health Res Policy Sys

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“… 16 , 17 This less stringent requirements for COI disclosure in journals publishing HPSR systematic reviews versus those publishing clinical systematic reviews is reflected in the field in general: while 99% of Core Clinical Journals have a COI disclosure policy, 21 93% of HPSR journals have such a policy. 22 …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, our team found that only 7% of HPSR journals were members of the ICMJE and 88% of journals require COI disclosure in a narrative statement. 22 …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reporting of Financial and Non-financial Conflicts of Interest in Systematic Reviews on Health Policy and Systems Research: A Cross Sectional Survey

Bou-Karroum

Hakoum

Hammoud

et al. 2018

Int J Health Policy Manag

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Background: Systematic reviews are increasingly used to inform health policy-making. The conflicts of interest (COI) of the authors of systematic reviews may bias their results and influence their conclusions. This may in turn lead to misguided public policies and systems level decisions. In order to mitigate the adverse impact of COI, scientific journals require authors to disclose their COIs. The objective of this study was to assess the frequency and different types of COI that authors of systematic reviews on health policy and systems research (HSPR) report. Methods: We conducted a cross sectional survey. We searched the Health Systems Evidence (HSE) database of McMaster Health Forum for systematic reviews published in 2015. We extracted information regarding the characteristics of the systematic reviews and the associated COI disclosures. We conducted descriptive analyses. Results: Eighty percent of systematic reviews included authors’ COI disclosures. Of the 160 systematic reviews that included COI disclosures, 15% had at least one author reporting at least one type of COI. The two most frequently reported types of COI were individual financial COI and individual scholarly COI (11% and 4% respectively). Institutional COIs were less commonly reported than individual COIs (3% and 15% respectively) and non-financial COIs were less commonly reported than financial COIs (6% and 14% respectively). Only one systematic review reported the COI disclosure by editors, and none reported disclosure by peer reviewers. All COI disclosures were in the form of a narrative statement in the main document and none in an online document. Conclusion: A fifth of systematic reviews in HPSR do not include a COI disclosure statement, highlighting the need for journals to strengthen and/or better implement their COI disclosure policies. While only 15% of identified disclosure statements report any COI, it is not clear whether this indicates a low frequency of COI versus an underreporting of COI, or both.

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“…Serôdio et al further the discussion by bringing attention to the problem of incomplete disclosure. Most medical and health journals have policies requiring some form of disclosure (11)(12)(13) . Thus, reasons for failing to disclose CoI, particularly financial ones, are unclear, although different CoI time windows across journals (requiring disclosure of financial relationships for 2 v. 3 years prior to the manuscript's submission, for example) is one potential source of ambiguity (11,12,14) .…”

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confidence: 99%

Disclosures of Coca-Cola funding: transparent or opaque?

Tseng¹,

Barnoya²,

Kruger³

et al. 2018

Public Health Nutr.

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, in response to a New York Times article reporting on the Coca-Cola Company's funding of the Global Energy Balance Network (1) , the company's CEO Muhtar Kent declared a commitment to 'act with even more transparency' (2). They would achieve this in part by publishing on their website a list of partnerships, research activities (3) and Coca-Cola-funded scientific investigators (4) , to be updated every six months. In their article in this issue of Public Health Nutrition (PHN), Serôdio et al. (5) evaluate efforts towards transparency on the part of both Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola-funded investigators. They use the Web of Science Core Collection database, which includes information from funding acknowledgements and competing interest statements. Their findings, in brief, show:

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Requirements of health policy and services journals for authors to disclose financial and non-financial conflicts of interest: a cross-sectional study

Cited by 13 publications

References 22 publications

The reporting of funding in health policy and systems research: a cross-sectional study

The reporting of funding in health policy and systems research: a cross-sectional study

Reporting of Financial and Non-financial Conflicts of Interest in Systematic Reviews on Health Policy and Systems Research: A Cross Sectional Survey

Disclosures of Coca-Cola funding: transparent or opaque?

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