RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Trends of sources of clinical research funding from 1990 to 2020: a meta-epidemiological study
JF Journal of Investigative Medicine
JO J Investig Med
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 1320
OP 1324
DO 10.1136/jim-2021-002044
VO 70
IS 5
A1 Erick Burciaga-Jimenez
A1 Ricardo Cesar Solis
A1 Melissa Saenz-Flores
A1 Jorge Alberto Zuñiga-Hernandez
A1 Miguel Zambrano-Lucio
A1 Rene Rodriguez-Gutierrez
YR 2022
UL http://hw-f5-jim.highwire.org/content/70/5/1320.abstract
AB Evidence has raised concerns regarding the association between funding sources and doubtful data. Our main outcome was to analyze trends on funding sources in articles published from 1990 to 2020 in the more influential journals of internal and general medicine. In this meta-epidemiological study, we included peer-reviewed studies from the 10 highest impact journals in general and internal medicine published between January 1990 and February 2020 based on published original research according to the 2018 InCites Journal of Citation Reports, these consisted of the following: The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, JAMA, BMJ, JAMA Internal Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, PLOS Medicine, Cachexia, BMC Medicine, and Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Two reviewers working in duplicate extracted data regarding year of publication, study design, and sources of funding. In total, 496 articles were found; of these, 311 (62.7%) were observational studies, 167 (33.7%) were experimental, and 16 (3.2%) were secondary analyses. Percentages of grant sources through the years were predominantly from government (60%), industry (23.83%), and non-governmental (16.06%) organizations. The percentage of industry subsidies tended to decrease, but this was not significant in a linear regression model (r=0.02, p≥0.05). Government and non-government funding sources showed a trend to decrease in the same univariate analysis with both significant associations (r=0.21, p≤0.001 and r=0.10, p≤0.001, respectively). The main funding source in medical research has consistently been government aid. Despite previous reported data, no association was found between the source of funding and statistically significant results favoring study authors’ hypothesis.