Conflict of interest in the evaluation and dissemination of “model” school-based drug and violence prevention programs

Abstract

Conflict of interest refers to a set of conditions in which professional judgment concerning the validity of research might be influenced by a secondary competing interest. The competing interest that has received most attention in the literature addressing the prevalence and effects of such conflicts on the practice of empirical research has been that of financial relationships between investigators and research sponsors. The potential for conflicts of interest to arise in the evaluation of drug prevention programs was raised by Moskowitz in this journal in 1993, but to date there has been no attempt made to estimate the scope of this problem. The present study addressed this issue using a sample of "model" school-based drug and violence prevention interventions by first, identifying the types or relationships that exist between program developers and program distributors, and, second, by assessing how many of the evaluations of these programs published in peer-reviewed journals had been conducted by the developers of the programs compared to independent evaluation teams. The data presented indicate that there are relatively few published evaluations that do not involve program developers and that there are few instances in which there is complete separation between the program developer and program distributor. Using the open systems model of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Research Integrity as a framework, it is argued that the culture and norms of the program developer and those of the program evaluator are fundamentally distinct and therefore failure to separate these roles produces high potential for conflict of interest to arise.

No effects in independent prevention trials: can we reject the cynical view?

“…As a result, best practice lists create a strong incentive to achieve inclusion on those lists, and there is little doubt that some researchers actively lobby for inclusion of their products in those lists. Gorman (2006) identifies ideological conflict of interest as a second threat to prevention research. It arises in situations in which researchers hold strong normative views about core issues in their area of research.…”

“…Petrosino and Soydan (2005) report that, in 56% of 281 studies included in their meta-analysis, the evaluation team included staff who also delivered the program. In a review of best-practice drug-prevention programs comprised in the National Registry of Effective and Promising Programs (NREPP), Gorman and Conde (2007) found that 78% of 246 evaluation studies included the program developer as one of the study authors and that only 11% of the evaluations could be regarded as completely independent.…”

“…More particularly, their judgments should reflect only the impartial assessment of the available evidence and not be influenced by any external factors. Conflict of interest generally refers to situations in which the main, institutionally-defined and publicly-declared interests of a professional compete with a person's secondary private self-interests (Gorman 2006).…”

“…Furthermore, Gorman (2003Gorman ( , 2005a and Gorman and Conde (2007) have published several studies on possible methodological bias in developer-as-evaluator trials. They found a series of problematic methodological decisions that are consistent with the assumption of bias resulting from conflict of interest.…”

Conflict of interest and Campbellian validity

“…Based on these studies the programs were placed on the Department of Education' s list of evidence-based model programs. The push to be included on evidence-based recommendation lists has intensified conflicts of interest because the designation is marketable (Gorman, 2006).…”