All of the authors are with the Charles Perkins Centre and School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia.
Am J Public Health. 2018 Nov;108(11):e9-e16. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304677. Epub 2018 Sep 25.
Corporate interests have the potential to influence public debate and policymaking by influencing the research agenda, namely the initial step in conducting research, in which the purpose of the study is defined and the questions are framed.
We conducted a scoping review to identify and synthesize studies that explored the influence of industry sponsorship on research agendas across different fields.
We searched MEDLINE, Scopus, and Embase (from inception to September 2017) for all original research and systematic reviews addressing corporate influence on the research agenda. We hand searched the reference lists of included studies and contacted experts in the field to identify additional studies.
We included empirical articles and systematic reviews that explored industry sponsorship of research and its influence on research agendas in any field. There were no restrictions on study design, language, or outcomes measured. We excluded editorials, letters, and commentaries as well as articles that exclusively focused on the influence of industry sponsorship on other phases of research such as methods, results, and conclusions or if industry sponsorship was not reported separately from other funding sources.
At least 2 authors independently screened and then extracted any quantitative or qualitative data from each study. We grouped studies thematically for descriptive analysis by design and outcome reported. We developed the themes inductively until all studies were accounted for. Two investigators independently rated the level of evidence of the included studies using the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine ratings.
We included 36 articles. Nineteen cross-sectional studies quantitatively analyzed patterns in research topics by sponsorship and showed that industry tends to prioritize lines of inquiry that focus on products, processes, or activities that can be commercialized. Seven studies analyzed internal industry documents and provided insight on the strategies the industry used to reshape entire fields of research through the prioritization of topics that supported its policy and legal positions. Ten studies used surveys and interviews to explore the researchers' experiences and perceptions of the influence of industry funding on research agendas, showing that they were generally aware of the risk that sponsorship could influence the choice of research priorities.
Corporate interests can drive research agendas away from questions that are the most relevant for public health. Strategies to counteract corporate influence on the research agenda are needed, including heightened disclosure of funding sources and conflicts of interest in published articles to allow an assessment of commercial biases. We also recommend policy actions beyond disclosure such as increasing funding for independent research and strict guidelines to regulate the interaction of research institutes with commercial entities. Public Health Implications. The influence on the research agenda has given the industry the potential to affect policymaking by influencing the type of evidence that is available and the kinds of public health solutions considered. The results of our scoping review support the need to develop strategies to counteract corporate influence on the research agenda.
企业利益有可能通过影响研究议程来影响公共辩论和决策，即开展研究的初始步骤，在此步骤中确定研究目的并提出问题。
我们进行了范围界定审查，以确定和综合研究，探讨了行业赞助对不同领域研究议程的影响。
我们在 MEDLINE、Scopus 和 Embase 中（从成立到 2017 年 9 月）搜索了所有针对企业对研究议程的影响的原始研究和系统评价。我们对纳入研究的参考文献进行了手工搜索，并联系了该领域的专家以确定其他研究。
我们纳入了探讨行业对研究的赞助及其对研究议程的影响的经验文章和系统评价，无论研究领域如何。对研究设计、语言或测量结果没有限制。我们排除了社论、信件和评论，以及仅侧重于行业赞助对研究其他阶段（如方法、结果和结论）的影响的文章，或者如果行业赞助没有与其他资金来源分开报告的文章。
至少有 2 名作者独立筛选，然后从每项研究中提取任何定量或定性数据。我们根据报告的设计和结果对研究进行主题分组进行描述性分析。我们通过归纳法发展主题，直到涵盖所有研究。两名调查员使用牛津循证医学中心的评级独立评估纳入研究的证据水平。
我们纳入了 36 篇文章。19 项横断面研究通过赞助定量分析了研究主题的模式，表明行业倾向于优先考虑专注于可商业化的产品、流程或活动的研究。7 项研究分析了行业内部文件，并就行业通过优先考虑支持其政策和法律立场的主题来重塑整个研究领域的策略提供了见解。10 项研究使用调查和访谈来探讨研究人员对行业资助对研究议程的影响的经验和看法，表明他们通常意识到赞助可能影响研究重点选择的风险。
企业利益可能会使研究议程偏离对公共卫生最相关的问题。需要采取策略来对抗企业对研究议程的影响，包括提高发表文章中资金来源和利益冲突披露的透明度，以评估商业偏见。我们还建议采取披露以外的政策行动，例如增加对独立研究的资助和严格的准则来规范研究机构与商业实体的互动。公共卫生意义。对研究议程的影响使该行业有可能通过影响现有证据的类型和考虑的公共卫生解决方案来影响决策制定。我们的范围界定审查结果支持需要制定策略来对抗企业对研究议程的影响。
