Lifting of Embargoes to Data Sharing in Clinical Trials Published in Top Medical Journals.

This study assesses data sharing status and lifting of embargoes in randomized clinical trials from top medical journals 3 to 5 years after publication.

[Tipping points in medical investigative journalism]. / Kantelpunten in de medische onderzoeksjournalistiek.

In recent years several studies have shown that investigative journalism can lead to significant revelations in the medical sector. This specific field in journalism has become more intriguing but also more complex due to the upsurge of large-scale data and the possibilities of artificial intelligence. Collaboration appears to be the solution. However, there are still plenty of obstacles to overcome.

JAMA Network Articles of the Year 2022.

This Medical News article is our annual roundup of the top-viewed articles from all JAMA Network journals.

Developing critical appraisal and evidence synthesis skills in future microbiologists.

The Covid-19 pandemic has demanded modifications to undergraduates' learning experiences and promised a more challenging scientific world in which they will live. Bespoke evidence synthesis and critical appraisal skills modules are an opportunity to utilize our information-saturated world to our advantage. This program of study made use of a virtual journal club, structured literature searches, scoping review methods and a variety of online research tools to navigate and critique the literature. The program design is here outlined with sample learning objectives and reference to the resources used.

Mutual Rewards: Engaging the Field and Creating a Path Toward Academic Journal Editorship.

In this commentary, the inaugural cohort of Academic Medicine assistant editors shares their experiences in this role and the value of creating a path toward academic journal editorship for early- and mid-career scholars. They are a group with diverse backgrounds and a common commitment to advance scholarship in medical education. They collectively describe how they have contributed to the journal in multiple ways, reflect on how they navigated onboarding challenges in the midst of a pandemic, and, most important, share why this role matters for the medical education scholarship community. They express how the assistant editor role has been mutually rewarding, allowing the assistant editors to gain entry to academic journal editorship while also serving the journal and its community.

Modern Health Journalism and the Impact of Social Media.

Scholarly journals are hubs of hypotheses, evidence-based data, and practice recommendations that shape health research and practice worldwide. The advancement of science and information technologies has made online accessibility a basic requirement, paving the way for the advent of open access publishing, and more recently, to web-based health journalism. Especially in the time of the current pandemic, health professionals have turned to the internet, and primarily to social media, as a source of rapid information transfer and international communication. Hence, the current pandemic has ushered an era of digital transformation of science, and we attempt to understand and assess the impact of this digitization on modern health journalism.

Neglect of publication bias compromises meta-analyses of educational research.

Because negative findings have less chance of getting published, available studies tend to be a biased sample. This leads to an inflation of effect size estimates to an unknown degree. To see how meta-analyses in education account for publication bias, we surveyed all meta-analyses published in the last five years in the Review of Educational Research and Educational Research Review. The results show that meta-analyses usually neglect publication bias adjustment. In the minority of meta-analyses adjusting for bias, mostly non-principled adjustment methods were used, and only rarely were the conclusions based on corrected estimates, rendering the adjustment inconsequential. It is argued that appropriate state-of-the-art adjustment (e.g., selection models) should be attempted by default, yet one needs to take into account the uncertainty inherent in any meta-analytic inference under bias. We conclude by providing practical recommendations on dealing with publication bias.

Who writes dermatology randomized controlled trials? The need to specify the role of medical writers.

Medical writers may make major contributions to the preparation of a manuscript, but are not listed as authors. We assessed the prevalence, affiliation and role of medical writers in dermatology randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in 2019 in the top 7 medical and top 10 dermatology journals. Medical writers were identified in 39/83 trials (47%), all of which were exclusively industry-funded trials (39/47, prevalence 83%). Most studies stated their role as 'medical writing support' and/or 'editorial assistance' (35/39, 90%), but when more information was provided, four studies specified first draft preparation (50% of RCTs in general medical and 1.3% of RCTs in dermatology journals). Medical writers are common in dermatology trials but their role is often vaguely stated. In April 2020 the British Journal or Dermatology and Clinical and Experimental Dermatology adopted CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy), which describes contributions of authors and may help clarify who writes trial manuscripts.

What cancer research makes the news? A quantitative analysis of online news stories that mention cancer studies.

Journalists' health and science reporting aid the public's direct access to research through the inclusion of hyperlinks leading to original studies in peer-reviewed journals. While this effort supports the US-government mandate that research be made widely available, little is known about what research journalists share with the public. This cross-sectional exploratory study characterises US-government-funded research on cancer that appeared most frequently in news coverage and how that coverage varied by cancer type, disease incidence and mortality rates. The subject of analysis was 11436 research articles (published in 2016) on cancer funded by the US government and 642 news stories mentioning at least one of these articles. Based on Altmetric data, researchers identified articles via PubMed and characterised each based on the news media attention received online. Only 1.88% (n = 213) of research articles mentioning US government-funded cancer research included at least one mention in an online news publication. This is in contrast to previous research that found 16.8% (n = 1925) of articles received mention by online mass media publications. Of the 13 most common cancers in the US, 12 were the subject of at least one news mention; only urinary and bladder cancer received no mention. Traditional news sources included significantly more mentions of research on common cancers than digital native news sources. However, a general discrepancy exists between cancers prominent in news sources and those with the highest mortality rate. For instance, lung cancer accounted for the most deaths annually, while melanoma led to 56% less annual deaths; however, journalists cited research regarding these cancers nearly equally. Additionally, breast cancer received the greatest coverage per estimated annual death, while pancreatic cancer received the least coverage per death. Findings demonstrated a continued misalignment between prevalent cancers and cancers mentioned in online news media. Additionally, cancer control and prevention received less coverage from journalists than other cancer continuum stages, highlighting a continued underrepresentation of prevention-focused research. Results revealed a need for further scholarship regarding the role of journalists in research dissemination.