Urlings M J E, Duyx B, Swaen G M H, Bouter L M, Zeegers M P
1NUTRIM School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
2Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Res Integr Peer Rev. 2019 Mar 29;4:6. doi: 10.1186/s41073-019-0065-7. eCollection 2019.
Bisphenol A is highly debated and studied in relation to a variety of health outcomes. This large variation in the literature makes BPA a topic that is prone to selective use of literature, in order to underpin one's own findings and opinion. Over time, selective use of literature, by means of citations, can lead to a skewed knowledge development and a biased scientific consensus. In this study, we assess which factors drive citation and whether this results in the overrepresentation of harmful health effects of BPA.
A citation network analysis was performed to test various determinants of citation. A systematic search identified all relevant publications on the human health effect of BPA. Data were extracted on potential determinants of selective citation, such as study outcome, study design, sample size, journal impact factor, authority of the author, self-citation, and funding source. We applied random effect logistic regression to assess whether these determinants influence the likelihood of citation.
One hundred sixty-nine publications on BPA were identified, with 12,432 potential citation pathways of which 808 citations occurred. The network consisted of 63 cross-sectional studies, 34 cohort studies, 29 case-control studies, 35 narrative reviews, and 8 systematic reviews. Positive studies have a 1.5 times greater chance of being cited compared to negative studies. Additionally, the authority of the author and self-citation are consistently found to be positively associated with the likelihood of being cited. Overall, the network seems to be highly influenced by two highly cited publications, whereas 60 out of 169 publications received no citations.
In the literature on BPA, citation is mostly driven by positive study outcome and author-related factors, such as high authority within the network. Interpreting the impact of these factors and the big influence of a few highly cited publications, it can be questioned to which extent the knowledge development in human literature on BPA is actually evidence-based.
双酚A（BPA）在各种健康结果方面受到了广泛的争议和研究。文献中的这种巨大差异使得双酚A成为一个容易被选择性引用文献的主题，以便支持自己的研究结果和观点。随着时间的推移，通过引用进行的选择性文献使用可能会导致知识发展的偏差和科学共识的偏见。在本研究中，我们评估了哪些因素驱动引用，以及这是否导致了双酚A有害健康影响的过度呈现。
进行了引用网络分析，以测试引用的各种决定因素。系统检索确定了所有关于双酚A对人类健康影响的相关出版物。提取了关于选择性引用的潜在决定因素的数据，如研究结果、研究设计、样本量、期刊影响因子、作者权威性、自引和资金来源。我们应用随机效应逻辑回归来评估这些决定因素是否影响引用的可能性。
确定了169篇关于双酚A的出版物，有12432条潜在引用途径，其中发生了808次引用。该网络包括63项横断面研究、34项队列研究、29项病例对照研究、35项叙述性综述和8项系统综述。与阴性研究相比，阳性研究被引用的可能性高1.5倍。此外，始终发现作者的权威性和自引与被引用的可能性呈正相关。总体而言，该网络似乎受到两篇高引用出版物的高度影响，而169篇出版物中有60篇未被引用。
在关于双酚A的文献中，引用主要由阳性研究结果和与作者相关的因素驱动，如网络内的高权威性。解释这些因素的影响以及少数高引用出版物的重大影响，可以质疑关于双酚A的人类文献中的知识发展在多大程度上实际上是基于证据的。
