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Editorial
Paving the way for greater open science in sports and exercise medicine: navigating the barriers to adopting open and accessible data practices
  1. Garrett S Bullock1,2,
  2. Patrick Ward3,
  3. Stefan Kluzek4,
  4. Tom Hughes5,
  5. Ellen Shanley6,7,
  6. Amelia Joanna Hanford Arundale8,
  7. Craig Ranson9,
  8. Sophia Nimphius10,
  9. Richard D Riley11,
  10. Gary S Collins12,
  11. Franco M Impellizzeri13
  1. 1 Orthopaedic Surgery & Rehabilitation, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
  2. 2 Biostatistics and Data Science, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
  3. 3 Seattle Seahawks, Renton, Washington, USA
  4. 4 Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology, and Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  5. 5 Department of Health Professions, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
  6. 6 Clinical Excellence, ATI Physical Therapy, Greer, South Carolina, USA
  7. 7 Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina System, Columbia, South Carolina, USA
  8. 8 Physiotherapy, Red Bull Athlete Performance Center, Thalgau, Austria
  9. 9 UK Sports Institute, Manchester, UK
  10. 10 School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
  11. 11 Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
  12. 12 Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
  13. 13 School of Sport, Exercise, and Rehabilitation, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway, New South Wales, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Garrett S Bullock, Orthopaedic Surgery & Rehabilitation, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA; garrettbullock{at}gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2023-107225

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    Sport healthcare and performance support practitioners require data to inform clinical and performance decisions, identify risk factors and investigate the efficacy and effectiveness of different interventions.1 Data sharing is a key component to improve sport healthcare decisions and initiatives, particularly in identifying and tackling systemic health priorities. However, sport healthcare data sharing practices are extremely limited due to little uptake and incentives, which inhibits knowledge growth, evidence synthesis and research progress.1 Incorporating open science practices into sport healthcare can increase the efficiency and quality of research,2 transparency,3 and promote public trust4 in the research process, results and implementation.

    There are many facets to adopting an open science framework with data sharing being a key component (table 1). However, barriers to creating open and accessible data exist and can be operationalised at four levels: (1) individual researcher; (2) publishing (ie, journals); (3) organisational support (ie, universities, sports leagues and governing bodies and grant funding bodies) and (4) governance and security. This editorial aims to contextualise the barriers of open and accessible data in sport health and provide potential solutions which account for the unique culture and environment of sport healthcare and performance providers.

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    Table 1

    Terms, barriers and potential solutions to sport health data sharing

    Individual barriers to open and accessible data

    Scientists have reported multiple barriers to data sharing, including time constraints and knowledge …

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @DRGSBullock, @dt_hughes, @soccerPT11, @docsoph

    • Correction notice This article has been corrected since it published Online First. The affiliation details have been corrected for author Tom Hughes.

    • Contributors GSB, PW and FMI conceived the article idea. GSB, PW and FMI defined the contents of the article. GSB, PW and FMI wrote the initial draft. GSB, PW, SK, TH, ES, AJHA, CR, SN, RDR, GSC and FMI critically revised the manuscript. GSB, PW, SK, TH, ES, AJHA, CR, SN, RDR, GSC and FMI approved the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

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