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Replication of influential studies on biomedical, social, behavioural and structural interventions for HIV prevention and treatment
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 15, Iss 10, p e0240159 (2020), PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2020.
-
Abstract
- Replication is an important tool to promote high quality research and ensure policy makers can rely on studies in making guidelines or funding programs. By ensuring influential studies are replicable we provide assurance that the policies based on these studies are well-founded and the conclusions and recommendations are robust-to different estimation models or different choices. In this paper, we argue that replication is not only useful but necessary to ensure that an author's choice in how to analyse data is not the only factor that determines whether an intervention is effective or not. We also show that while most research is done well and provides robust results, small differences can lead to different interpretations and these differences need to be acknowledged. This special issue highlights 5 such replication studies, which are replications of influential studies on biomedical, social, behavioural and structural interventions for HIV prevention and treatment. We reflect on their findings. Four out of five studies, which conduct push button replication and pure replication, were able to reproduce the results of the original studies with minor differences, mainly due to minor typographical errors or rounding differences. The analysis of the measurement and estimation analyses conducted in these five studies reveals that the original results are not very robust to alternative analytical approaches, especially when these results rely on a small number of observations. In these cases, the original results are weakened. Furthermore, in contrast to the original papers, two of the five included replication studies conducted a theory of change analysis-to explore how or why the interventions work (or do not) not just whether the intervention works or not. These two analyses indicate that the estimated impacts of the interventions are drawn from few mediators. In addition, they demonstrate that, in some cases, a lack of effect may be related to lack of adequate exposure to the intervention rather than inefficacy of the intervention per se. However, overall, the included replication studies show that the results presented in the original papers are trustworthy and robust, especially when based on larger sample sizes. Replication studies can not only verify the results of a study, they can also provide additional insights on the published results, such as how and why an intervention was effective or less effective than expected. They can thus be a tool to inform the research community and/ or policymakers about whether and how interventions could be adopted, which need to be tested further, and which should be discontinued because of their ineffectiveness. Thus, publishing these replication studies in peer-reviewed journals makes the work public and publicized. The work advances knowledge, and publication should be encouraged, as it is for other types of research.
- Subjects :
- RNA viruses
Bacterial Diseases
Biomedical Research
Epidemiology
050204 development studies
Applied psychology
Psychological intervention
Social Sciences
HIV Infections
Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
0302 clinical medicine
Medical Conditions
Cognition
Immunodeficiency Viruses
Behavior Therapy
Psychology
030212 general & internal medicine
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
Multidisciplinary
05 social sciences
Research Assessment
Vaccination and Immunization
Infectious Diseases
Research Design
HIV epidemiology
Medical Microbiology
Viral Pathogens
Viruses
Medicine
Pathogens
Anti-HIV Agents
Science
Overview
HIV prevention
Immunology
Decision Making
MEDLINE
Replication Studies
Antiretroviral Therapy
Research and Analysis Methods
Microbiology
03 medical and health sciences
Antiviral Therapy
Intervention (counseling)
Research Support as Topic
0502 economics and business
Replication (statistics)
Retroviruses
Humans
Tuberculosis
Typographical error
Microbial Pathogens
Estimation
Medicine and health sciences
Preventive medicine
Lentivirus
Organisms
Cognitive Psychology
Reproducibility of Results
Social Support
Biology and Life Sciences
HIV
Theory of change
Tropical Diseases
Public and occupational health
Sample size determination
Cognitive Science
Neuroscience
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 15
- Issue :
- 10
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....4fae77c9319b87d78d73b33318567429