IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0221250.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Building consensus on interactions between population health researchers and the food industry: Two-stage, online, international Delphi study and stakeholder survey

Author

Listed:
  • Katherine Cullerton
  • Jean Adams
  • Oliver Francis
  • Nita Forouhi
  • Martin White

Abstract

Key to scientific integrity is ensuring that research findings are considered credible by scientific peers, practitioners, policymakers and the public. Industry sponsorship of nutritional research can result in bias and raises significant professional, public and media concern. Yet, there is no international consensus on how to prevent or manage conflicts of interest for researchers considering engaging with the food industry. This study aimed to determine internationally agreed principles to guide interactions between population health researchers and the food industry to prevent or manage conflicts of interest. We used a two-stage, online Delphi study for researchers (n = 100 in 28 countries), and an online survey for stakeholders (n = 84 in 26 countries). Levels of agreement were sought with 56 principles derived from a systematic review. Respondent comments were analysed using qualitative content analysis. High levels of agreement on principles were achieved for both groups (researchers 68%; stakeholders 65%). Highest levels of agreement were with principles concerning research methods and governance. More contentious were principles that required values-based decision-making, such as determining which elements of the commercial sector are acceptable to interact with. These results provide the basis for developing internationally-agreed guidelines for population health researchers governing interactions with the food industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Katherine Cullerton & Jean Adams & Oliver Francis & Nita Forouhi & Martin White, 2019. "Building consensus on interactions between population health researchers and the food industry: Two-stage, online, international Delphi study and stakeholder survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0221250
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0221250
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0221250
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0221250&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0221250?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daylian M. Cain & George Loewenstein & Don A. Moore, 2005. "The Dirt on Coming Clean: Perverse Effects of Disclosing Conflicts of Interest," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 1-25, January.
    2. Jeff Collin & Sarah E Hill & Mor Kandlik Eltanani & Evgeniya Plotnikova & Rob Ralston & Katherine E Smith, 2017. "Can public health reconcile profits and pandemics? An analysis of attitudes to commercial sector engagement in health policy and research," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(9), pages 1-13, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muel Kaptein, 2023. "A Paradox of Ethics: Why People in Good Organizations do Bad Things," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 297-316, April.
    2. Ek, Claes, 2017. "Some causes are more equal than others? The effect of similarity on substitution in charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 45-62.
    3. Lamar Pierce & Jason Snyder, 2015. "Unethical Demand and Employee Turnover," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(4), pages 853-869, November.
    4. Danilov, Anastasia & Biemann, Torsten & Kring, Thorn & Sliwka, Dirk, 2013. "The dark side of team incentives: Experimental evidence on advice quality from financial service professionals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 266-272.
    5. Kriss, Peter H. & Nagel, Rosemarie & Weber, Roberto A., 2013. "Implicit vs. explicit deception in ultimatum games with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 337-346.
    6. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    7. Roy H Perlis & Clifford S Perlis, 2016. "Physician Payments from Industry Are Associated with Greater Medicare Part D Prescribing Costs," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-12, May.
    8. S Scott Graham & Zoltan P Majdik & Dave Clark & Molly M Kessler & Tristin Brynn Hooker, 2020. "Relationships among commercial practices and author conflicts of interest in biomedical publishing," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-11, July.
    9. Lucas C. Coffman & Alexander Gotthard-Real, 2019. "Moral Perceptions of Advised Actions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(8), pages 3904-3927, August.
    10. Kartal, Melis & Tremewan, James, 2018. "An offer you can refuse: The effect of transparency with endogenous conflict of interest," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 44-55.
    11. Ismayilov, Huseyn & Potters, Jan, 2013. "Disclosing advisor's interests neither hurts nor helps," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 314-320.
    12. Effron, Daniel A. & Raj, Medha, 2021. "Disclosing interpersonal conflicts of interest: Revealing whom we like, but not whom we dislike," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 68-85.
    13. Deversi, Marvin & Ispano, Alessandro & Schwardmann, Peter, 2021. "Spin doctors: An experiment on vague disclosure," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    14. Rebitzer, James B. & Taylor, Lowell J., 2011. "Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives: Standard and Behavioral Approaches to Agency and Labor Markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 8, pages 701-772, Elsevier.
    15. Bazerman, Max H. & Sezer, Ovul, 2016. "Bounded awareness: Implications for ethical decision making," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 95-105.
    16. Daniel Stone, 2011. "A signal-jamming model of persuasion: interest group funded policy research," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 37(3), pages 397-424, September.
    17. Emir Kamenica & Matthew Gentzkow, 2011. "Bayesian Persuasion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2590-2615, October.
    18. Tim Loughran & Bill McDonald & Hayong Yun, 2009. "A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: The Use of Ethics-Related Terms in 10-K Reports," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 39-49, May.
    19. D.J. da Cunha Batista Geraldes & Franziska Heinicke & S. Rosenkranz, 2021. "Lying in Two Dimensions," Working Papers 2101, Utrecht School of Economics.
    20. Amos Schurr & Ilana Ritov & Yaakov Kareev & Judith Avrahami, 2012. "The Effect of Perspective on Unethical Behavior," Discussion Paper Series dp620, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0221250. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.