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Identifying and Minimizing Incentives for Competing Interests in Sports Medicine Publications

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Abstract

Academics in sports medicine as well as other medical fields are generally expected to publish research and opinions in peer-reviewed journals. The peer-review process is intended to protect against the publication of flawed research and unsubstantiated claims. However, both financial and non-financial competing interests may result in sub-optimal results by affecting investigators, editors, peer reviewers, academic institutions, and publishers. In this article, we focus on the non-financial competing interests created in our current academic system. Because these competing interests are embedded in our current scholastic framework, the potential biases are difficult to quantify. To minimize the effect of these competing interests, we review and highlight some underlying incentives for each stakeholder and some potential solutions to mitigate their effects.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank John Ioannidis and Asbjørn Hróbjartsson for their very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Clinical Epidemiology, Lady Davis Institute, Jewish General Hospital, McGill University, 3755 Cote Sainte Catherine Road, Montreal, QC, H3T 1E2, Canada

    Ian Shrier

  2. School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Franco M. Impellizzeri

  3. Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minnesota, USA

    Steven D. Stovitz

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  1. Ian Shrier
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ian Shrier.

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Funding

This work was unfunded.

Non-Financial Interests

IS and FMI have experience as Editor-in-Chief of peer-reviewed journals, and all authors have been Associate Editors and Editorial Board Members for multiple journals. The issues raised in this article have been a concern of all authors for a long period of time, but this topic is not related to their primary research interests or grant funding.

Conflict of Interests

Financial Interests: IS, FMI, and SDS are all employed by universities. The primary responsibilities of IS and FMI are to obtain grants and publish studies. SDS is primarily employed as a practicing physician and educator, but obtaining grants and publishing studies are included as part of his performance evaluation.

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All authors contributed equally to the ideas and solutions presented in this Current Opinion article.

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Shrier, I., Impellizzeri, F.M. & Stovitz, S.D. Identifying and Minimizing Incentives for Competing Interests in Sports Medicine Publications. Sports Med (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-024-02037-w

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