Researcher Adherence to Journal Data Sharing Policies: A Meta-Research Study
Abstract
Aidan Christopher Tan,1,2 Yiyi Lin,1 Michellie Lian,1 Zhilin Ren,1 Tony Lian,1 Vincent Yuan,3 Angela Webster,1 Anna Lene Seidler1
Objective
We aimed to describe researcher adherence to journal data sharing policies across health research. This included describing what factors increase intention to share data and how journal policies requiring data sharing impact intended data sharing.
Design
This was a cross-sectional study of all original research published in the highest-impact medical journals in 2022. Journals were included if they ranked among the top 5 in Impact Factor in 59 fields of medicine in the 2020 Journal Citation Reports, had a data sharing policy that either required or recommended sharing data, and published original research. Journal websites were searched to identify all original research published in 2022. Data were manually collected on study characteristics (study type, industry involvement, and COVID-19 relevance) and data sharing plans (data sharing statements and data sharing intentions extracted from publicly available research protocols and articles). Articles were descriptively analyzed by these journal data sharing policies, study characteristics, and data sharing plans.
Results
Of 134 journals included, 36 (27%) required data sharing and 98 (73%) recommended data sharing. The analysis included 1868 interventional studies (1383 randomized clinical trials [74%] and 485 nonrandomized trials [26%]) and 10,368 observational studies (4814 cohort studies [46%], 4166 cross-sectional studies [40%], 1100 case-control studies [11%], and 288 case series/reports [3%]). Publicly available research protocols were available for 1993 of 10,243 studies (16%), of which 1153 (58%) had an initial data sharing statement. Only 1023 interventional studies (55%) and 4511 observational studies (44%) in journals that recommended or required data sharing actually intended to share data. Most studies only intended to share data underlying the published results with researchers, for purposes and by mechanisms at the discretion of and subject to approval by the principal investigator and without supporting documents or specified timeframes. Factors associated with increased intention to share data included journal policies that required data sharing and data sharing statements as well as industry involvement and COVID-19 relevance for interventional studies. For journals with policies that required data sharing, researchers were more likely to share more data (ie, all data collected during the study) and supporting documents (ie, supporting documents) in a timelier manner (ie, immediately following publication and indefinitely) to more people (ie, to anyone who wishes to access the data) for more purposes (ie, for any purpose) and by easier means (ie, with unrestricted access through a third-party website).
Conclusions
Journals that required data sharing had higher rates of studies that intended to share data compared with journals that only recommended data sharing. However, most studies that intended to share data had restrictions on sharing. In addition to requiring data sharing and data sharing statements, journals should define and explain data sharing and individual participant data, better review data sharing statements and the reasonableness of justifications to not share data, and provide additional guidance on the operationalization of data sharing in accordance with best practice.
1NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, aidan.tan@sydney.edu.au; 2Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, 3University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.