University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Doi
Abstract
Bias in medical research poses a serious threat to public health. Conflicts of Interest create the risk of conscious or subconscious bias in research article authors. Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) are widely recognized as relatively as objective, quantifiable, and fairly regulated form of COI. Many medical journals have adopted FCOI disclosure is a means of communicating the potential for bias in research to readers. Research on the impact of FCOI disclosure on the attitudes readers develop toward an article has thus far focused on text-based FCOI disclosure without details on the nature of dollar value of payments received.In this work, I developed an algorithm to match authors to a federal database of payments they received from industry during the FCOI disclosure windows for an article. I have four goals: First, I establish that algorithmic matching of authors to federal payments profile is feasible. Second, I evaluate the impact of detailed graphical FCOI disclosure on the attitudes that readers develop toward a publication. Third, I evaluate the perspectives and opinions or medical journal article authors when presented with graphical FCOI disclosure of their own payments and those of their author teams. Fourth, I gather the perspectives, possible objections, requirements, and desires of key opinion leaders among academia and medical publishing regarding the potential adoption of graphical FCOI disclosures as a standard in academic medical publishing. My findings suggest that the adoption of semi-automated systems for graphical FCOI disclosure may enhance the ability of many stakeholders to detect the potential for bias in medical research without undue harm to authors or corporations.Doctor of Philosoph
