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Original research
Bridging research integrity and global health epidemiology (BRIDGE) statement: guidelines for good epidemiological practice
  1. Sandra Alba1,
  2. Kristien Verdonck2,
  3. Annick Lenglet3,4,
  4. Susan F Rumisha5,6,
  5. Martijn Wienia7,
  6. Imre Teunissen1,
  7. Masja Straetemans1,
  8. Walter Mendoza8,
  9. Daniel Jeannetot1,
  10. Daniel Weibel9,
  11. Harriet Mayanja-Kizza10,
  12. Sanjay Juvekar11
  1. 1 Health, KIT Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  2. 2 Tropical Diseases, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium
  3. 3 Médecins Sans Frontières, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  4. 4 Department of Medical Microbiology, Radboudumc, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  5. 5 National Institute for Medical Research, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, United Republic of
  6. 6 Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  7. 7 NWO-WOTRO Science for Global Development, The Hague, The Netherlands
  8. 8 United Nations Population Fund, Lima, Peru
  9. 9 EDCTP, The Hague, The Netherlands
  10. 10 School of Medicine, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
  11. 11 Vadu Rural Health Program, KEM Hospital Research Centre, Pune, India
  1. Correspondence to Dr Sandra Alba; s.alba{at}kit.nl

Abstract

Background Research integrity and research fairness have gained considerable momentum in the past decade and have direct implications for global health epidemiology. Research integrity and research fairness principles should be equally nurtured to produce high-quality impactful research—but bridging the two can lead to practical and ethical dilemmas. In order to provide practical guidance to researchers and epidemiologist, we set out to develop good epidemiological practice guidelines specifically for global health epidemiology, targeted at stakeholders involved in the commissioning, conduct, appraisal and publication of global health research.

Methods We developed preliminary guidelines based on targeted online searches on existing best practices for epidemiological studies and sought to align these with key elements of global health research and research fairness. We validated these guidelines through a Delphi consultation study, to reach a consensus among a wide representation of stakeholders.

Results A total of 45 experts provided input on the first round of e-Delphi consultation and 40 in the second. Respondents covered a range of organisations (including for example academia, ministries, NGOs, research funders, technical agencies) involved in epidemiological studies from countries around the world (Europe: 19; Africa: 10; North America: 7; Asia: 5; South-America: 3 Australia: 1). A selection of eight experts were invited for a face-to-face meeting. The final guidelines consist of a set of 6 standards and 42 accompanying criteria including study preparation, protocol development, data collection, data management, data analysis, dissemination and communication.

Conclusion While guidelines will not by themselves guard global health from questionable and unfair research practices, they are certainly part of a concerted effort to ensure not only mutual accountability between individual researchers, their institutions and their funders but most importantly their joint accountability towards the communities they study and society at large.

  • epidemiology
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003236

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    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Seye Abimbola

    • Contributors SA conceived the study, led its execution and compiled the first draft of this manuscript. IT coordinated the implementation of the online Delphi consultation study and wrote the methodology description. MS participated in the consultation sessions for the development of the initial guidelines and DJ and MS led the face-to-face expert review meeting. KV, SFR, AL, SJ, DW, HM-K and WM participated in the expert face-to-face meeting and took final decisions with regard to the formulation of the standards and criteria. All authors read and approved the final version of this manuscript.

    • Funding This study was made possible thanks to funding from the KIT Knowledge Investment Fund

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement Data are available in a public, open access repository. 10.5281/zenodo.3903146.