A cross-sectional analysis of pharmaceutical industry-funded events for health professionals in Australia.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To analyse patterns and characteristics of pharmaceutical industry sponsorship of events for Australian health professionals and to understand the implications of recent changes in transparency provisions that no longer require reporting of payments for food and beverages.

Design

Cross-sectional analysis.

Participants and setting

301 publicly available company transparency reports downloaded from the website of Medicines Australia, the pharmaceutical industry trade association, covering the period from October 2011 to September 2015.

Results

Forty-two companies sponsored 116 845 events for health professionals, on average 608 per week with 30 attendees per event. Events typically included a broad range of health professionals: 82.0% included medical

SUBMITTER: Fabbri A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5726125 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature