Hollin Gregory
Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Crit Public Health. 2025 Jun 3;35(1):2507854. doi: 10.1080/09581596.2025.2507854. eCollection 2025.
Concussion in sport is increasingly understood as a public health crisis. A key facet of this crisis concerns the claim that industry-funded research results in conflicts of interest that fundamentally compromise scholarship. This poses a particular problem for policymakers when adjudicating upon who counts as an expert and what to do with the evidence that they provide. In this paper, I explore these matters in relation to the 'Concussion in Sport' report produced by the UK's House of Commons's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. I ask, first, which stakeholders submit evidence to the Committee and, second, how evidence provided by those stakeholders is marshalled within the report itself. I show that, despite concerns about conflicts of interest, a significant body of interdisciplinary scholarship is submitted to the Committee. The report itself, however, understands academic scholarship as being both deficient and compromised, drawing exclusively upon epidemiological and neuroscientific work. I conclude by suggesting such an approach compromises the committee's own hope for an increasingly expansive notion of expertise.
体育运动中的脑震荡日益被视为一场公共卫生危机。这场危机的一个关键方面涉及这样一种说法，即由行业资助的研究成果会导致利益冲突，从根本上损害学术研究。当政策制定者在判定谁可被视为专家以及如何处理他们提供的证据时，这就构成了一个特殊问题。在本文中，我将围绕英国下议院数字、文化、媒体和体育委员会发布的《体育运动中的脑震荡》报告来探讨这些问题。我首先要问的是，哪些利益相关者向委员会提交了证据，其次是这些利益相关者提供的证据在报告本身中是如何整理编排的。我表明，尽管存在利益冲突方面的担忧，但仍有大量跨学科的学术研究提交给了委员会。然而，报告本身却认为学术研究既存在缺陷又受到了损害，它仅借鉴了流行病学和神经科学方面的工作。我在结论中指出，这样一种做法损害了委员会自身对于日益宽泛的专业知识概念的期望。
