Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Availability of Research Data in High-Impact Addiction Journals with Data Sharing Policies

  • Original Research/Scholarship
  • Published:
Science and Engineering Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Although data sharing is one of the primary measures proposed to improve the integrity and quality of published research, studies show it remains the exception not the rule. The current study examines the availability of data in papers reporting the results of analyses of empirical data from original research in high-impact addiction journals. Thirteen high-impact journals with data sharing policies were selected from those included in the substance abuse category of the 2018 Clarivate Analytics’ Journal Citation Report. The first 10 full or short original research reports that included empirical data in the most recent complete issue of each journal were electronically searched and reviewed for reference to where their data can be obtained and for a formal data sharing statement. Only eight of the 130 papers contained a data sharing statement in their text or supplementary online materials, and just one contained a direct link to the data analyzed. Data sharing was rare in the 13 high-impact addiction journals reviewed. The nature of the data reported in addiction journals might partly explain this. Currently, data sharing is not a procedure likely to improve the quality and integrity of published addiction research.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Availability of Data

These are contained in the following supporting documents: Appendix S1: Starting Point for Identifying 10 Research Articles from Each of the 12 Journals (Obtained from Journal Websites via Texas A&M University Library on November 26 to November 27, 2018 and February 22, 2019); Appendix S2: Included and Excluded Papers; Appendix S3: Journal Data Sharing Policy (Obtained from Journal Websites on October 9, 2018 to January 23, 2019).

References

  • Alberts, B., Kirschner, M. W., Tighman, S., & Varmus, H. (2014). Rescuing US biomedical research from its systemic flaws. PNAS,111, 5773–5777.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aleixandre-Benavent, R., Vidal-Infer, A., Arroyo, A. A., Valderrama Zurian, J. C., Bueno Canigral, F., & Ferrer Sapena, A. (2014). Public availability of published research data in substance abuse journals. International Journal of Drug Policy,25, 1143–1146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alsheikh-Ali, A. A., Qureshi, W., Al-Mallah, M. H., & Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2011). Public availability of published research data in high-impact journals. PLoS ONE,6(9), e24357. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0024357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bettencourt, L. M. A., Clinton-Arias, A., Kaiser, D. I., & Castillo-Chavez, C. (2006). The power of a good idea: Quantitative modeling of the spread of ideas from epidemiological models. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications,364, 513–536.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, M. A., & Roy, S. (2017). Academic research in the 21st century: Maintaining scientific integrity in a climate of perverse incentives and hypercompetition. Environmental Engineering Science,34, 51–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fecher, B., Friesike, S., & Hebing, M. (2015). What drives academic data sharing? PLoS ONE,10(2), e0118053. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118053.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goozner, M., Caplan, A., Moreno, J., Kramer, B. S., Babor, T. F., & Husser, W. C. (2009). A common standard for conflict of interest disclosure in addiction journals. Addiction,104, 1779–1784.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gorman, D. M. (2019). Use of publication procedures to improve research integrity by addiction journals. Addiction, 114, 1478–1486.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2014). How to make more published research true. PLoS Medicine,11(10), 1001747.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, J. N., Hanson, K. A., Jones, C. A., Grandhi, R., Guerrero, J., & Rodriguez, J. S. (2018). Data sharing in neurosurgery and neurology journals. Cureus,10(5), e2680. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.2680.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kiss, I. Z., Broom, M., Craze, P. G., & Rafols, I. (2010). Can epidemic models describe the diffusion of topics across disciplines? Journal of Informetrics,4, 74–82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martinez, F., & Atuesta, L. H. (2018). Mourning our dead: The impact of Mexico’s war on drugs on citizens’ depressive symptoms. International Journal of Drug Policy,60, 65–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKiernan, E. C., Bourne, P. E., Brown, C. T., Buck, S., Kenall, A., Lin, J., et al. (2016). How open science helps researchers succeed. eLIFE,5, e16800. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.16800.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munafò, M. (2016). Conflicts of interest and solicited replication attempts (editorial). Nicotine & Tobacco Research,18, 377–378.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Naudet, F., Sakarovitch, C., Janiaud, P., Critea, P., Fanelli, D., Moher, D., et al. (2018). Data sharing and reanalysis of randomized controlled trials in leading biomedical journals with a full data sharing policy: survey of studies published in the BMJ and PLOS Medicine. BMJ. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k400.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, N., & Smith, A. H. (2011). Data sharing: Not as simple as it seems. Environmental Health,10, 107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rowhani-Farid, A., Barnett, & A.G., (2016). Has open data arrived at the British Medical Journal (BMJ)? An observational study. . BMJ Open,6, e011784. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011784.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scimago Journal and Country Rank. (2019). Retrieved August 28, 2019, from https://www.scimagojr.com/index.php.

  • Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science,22, 1359–1366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vidal-Infer, A., Aleixandre-Benavent, R., Lucas-Dominguez, R., & Sixto-Costoya, A. (2019). The availability of raw data in substance abuse scientific journals. Journal of Substance Use,24, 36–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wallach, J. D., Boyach, K. W., & Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2018). Reproducible research practices, transparency, and open access data in the biomedical literature, 2015–2017. PLoS Biology,16(11), e2006930. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2006930.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Womack, R. P. (2015). Research data in core journals in biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. PLoS ONE,10(12), e0143460. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0143460.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

None.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Texas A&M University, 212 Adriance Lab Road, College Station, TX, 77843-1266, USA

    Dennis M. Gorman

Authors
  1. Dennis M. Gorman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

DMG designed the study, collected the data, summarized these, and wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dennis M. Gorman.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 47 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gorman, D.M. Availability of Research Data in High-Impact Addiction Journals with Data Sharing Policies. Sci Eng Ethics 26, 1625–1632 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-020-00203-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-020-00203-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation