Investigating the trustworthiness of research evidence used to inform public health policy: a qualitative interview study on the use of predatory journal citations in policy documents
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Evidence-based policymaking has increased policymakers' capacity to make scientifically informed health policy decisions. However, reaping the benefits of this approach requires avoiding untrustworthy research - potential sources of which are predatory journals. In this study, we sought to understand how research cited in policy documents is sourced and evaluated, and identify factors that may be contributing to the citation of predatory journals or other less trustworthy evidence. To this end, we conducted semi-structured interviews with individuals who have prepared public health policy documents. These interviews were thematically analysed, and five key overarching themes were generated regarding the process of deciding how to develop policy documents (e.g. which individuals to involve) and how this may impact which information is included; obstacles such as limited evidence that may hinder policy document development; and concerns around transparency throughout the development process. Our findings highlight that in many cases, information cited in policy documents is sourced and evaluated with variable rigour. This may contribute to the citation of untrustworthy research in policy documents. Certain steps can be taken to help minimize any potential negative impact of relying on such sources (e.g. improving transparency), but a better understanding of policymakers' perspectives regarding how taking these steps would impact their decision-making process may be required to ensure successful implementation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Direct model labels (unvalidated)
Per-model category and study-design labels from the labeling rounds. They are machine output, unvalidated, and the disagreement between models ships as data. No study design here is MEDLINE-validated yet.
| Model arm | Categories | Study design | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| gemma | MetaresearchBibliometricsResearch integrity Domain: Evaluation · Genre: Empirical About the Canadian research system: no · About a Canadian topic: no | Qualitative | low |
| gpt | Research integrity Domain: not available · Genre: Empirical About the Canadian research system: no · About a Canadian topic: no | Qualitative | low |
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.205 | 0.352 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.019 | 0.029 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.014 | 0.014 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.014 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedLabeled directly by 2 models reading the full record.
The models disagree on parts of this classification; every voice is preserved in the section at the end of the page.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".