We conducted a co-authorship network analysis of the primary studies included within a previous co-authorship study of 60 systematic reviews on the impact of alcohol on CVD. Additionally, we examined the relationships between declared alcohol industry funding and network structure.
There were 713 unique primary studies with 2832 authors published between 1969 and 2019 located within 229 co-authorship subnetworks. There was industry funding across subnetworks and approximately 8% of all papers declared industry funding. The largest subnetwork dominated, comprising 43% of all authors, with sparse evidence of substantial industry funding. The second largest subnetwork contained approximately 4% of all authors, with largely different industry funders involved. Harvard affiliated authors who at the review level formed co-authorship subnetworks with industry funded authors were seen at the primary study level to belong to the largest epidemiological subnetwork. A small number of key authors make extensive alcohol industry funding declarations.
There was no straightforward relationship between co-authorship network formation and alcohol industry funding of epidemiological studies on alcohol and CVD. More fine-grained attention to patterns of alcohol industry funding and to key nodes may shed further light on how far industry funding may be responsible for conflicting findings on alcohol and CVD.
方法:我们对先前的60篇关于酒精对CVD影响的系统评价的共同作者研究中的主要研究进行了共同作者网络分析。此外,我们研究了已申报的酒精行业资金与网络结构之间的关系。
结果:在1969年至2019年之间发表了713项独特的主要研究,有2832位作者,位于229个共同作者子网络中。整个子网都有行业资金,所有论文中约有8%申报了行业资金。最大的子网络占主导地位,占所有作者的43%,很少有大量行业资金的证据。第二大子网约占所有作者的4%,涉及到不同的行业资助者。哈佛大学的附属作者在评论级别与行业资助的作者形成了共同作者子网络,在主要研究级别被视为属于最大的流行病学子网络。少数主要作者发表了广泛的酒精行业资助声明。
结论:共同作者网络的形成与酒精行业对酒精和CVD流行病学研究的资助之间没有直接的关系。对酒精行业融资模式和关键节点的更细粒度关注可能会进一步揭示行业融资在多大程度上可能导致酒精和CVD的矛盾发现。