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Coronavirus Research Evidence Evaluation Psychology/Neuroscience

Coronavirus Research Evidence Evaluation Psychology/Neuroscience
COVID-19 has unleashed an unprecedented global crisis. Society demands immediate decisions, and policy-makers urge scientists to provide evidence for those decisions. Unfortunately, science is not a fast process, as illustrated by some famous...

COVID-19 has unleashed an unprecedented global crisis. Society demands immediate decisions, and policy-makers urge scientists to provide evidence for those decisions. Unfortunately, science is not a fast process, as illustrated by some famous premature declarations based on unreliable evidence, like treating COVID-19 with Hydroxychloroquine. The present proposal seeks to quantify the reliability of research outputs garnered during this crisis, to improve evidence evaluation and hence, make policy-making more efficient. The reliability of scientific outputs can be evaluated with quantitative methods that account for well-known problems in scientific progress such as publication bias, or the disproportionate prevalence and impact of false positive findings. Our methodological approach is based on recently-developed analytical techniques aimed at evaluating evidence available in published articles. We plan to apply these techniques to the research outputs generated during the present crisis. These techniques, such as for example p-curves, are grounded on the probabilistic nature of statistical evidence, and estimate reliability from statistical parameters available in publications, public repositories and scientific databases. The results of our project will help evaluate scientific output during this crisis and its reliability to support decision-making. In addition, a better understanding of scientific production under pressing circumstances will provide more solid grounds to guide scientific efforts during future crises.

Fundacion BBVA, ref: Fundación BBVA - EI2020 Covid19