Current reading list (January 2026)

We have been keeping an eye on the methods literature, and think people with an interest in the Bias Methods Group may be interested in the following articles published recently:

Bantle G, Stadelmaier J, Petropoulou M, et al. Most methodological characteristics do not exaggerate effect estimates in nutrition RCTs: findings from a meta-epidemiological study. J Clin Epidemiol. 2026;189:112038.

Bonnet H, Higgins JPT, Chaimani A, et al. Including nonrandomized evidence in living systematic reviews: lessons learned from the COVID-NMA initiative. J Clin Epidemiol. 2026;190.

Cashin AG, Hansford HJ, Hernán MA, et al. Transparent reporting of observational studies emulating a target trial: the TARGET Statement. JAMA. 2025;334(12):1084-1093.

Chan A, Boutron I, Hopewell S, et al. SPIRIT 2025 statement: updated guideline for protocols of randomised trials. BMJ. 2025;389:e081477.

Colunga-Lozano LE, Wang Y, Agoritsas T, et al. Core GRADE unpacked: a summary of recent innovations in complementary GRADE methodology. J Clin Epidemiol. 2026;189:112047.

De Luca Canto G, Pauletto P, Stefani CM, et al. Spin Bias in randomized controlled trials of botulinum toxin for bruxism management: a meta-epidemiologic study. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2025;25(1):125.

Easter CL, Kristunas C, Greenfield S, et al. Researchers’ views of risk of bias in cluster randomised trials: a qualitative interview study. BMJ Open. 2025;15(11):e103091.

Faltinsen E, Østengaard L, Boutron I, et al. User experience of Tool for Addressing Conflicts of Interest in Trials (TACIT) prototype: interview and questionnaire study. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;188:112003.

Hopewell S, Chan A, Collins G S, et al. CONSORT 2025 statement: updated guideline for reporting randomised trials. BMJ. 2025;389:e081123.

Korfitsen CB, Van Beersel Krejčíková H, Nejstgaard CH, et al. Conflict of interest policies for editors and peer reviewers in medical journals: cross-sectional study. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;188:111980.

Laursen DRT, Broager MI, Damkjær MW, et al. Impact of active placebo controls on estimated drug effects in randomized trials: a meta-epidemiological study. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;188:111998.

Laurie C, Alonso Coello P, Florez ID, et al. The Risk of Bias in Vaccine Effectiveness (RoB-VE) project: introduction to a methodological initiative to improve risk-of-bias assessment and reporting in vaccine effectiveness research. J Clin Epidemiol. 2026;190:112088.

Ludwig DS, Willett WC, Putt ME. Wash-in and washout effects: mitigating bias in short term dietary and other trials. BMJ. 2025;389:e082963.

Marques-Cruz M, Pinto F, Vieira RJ, et al. Use of artificial intelligence to support the assessment of the methodological quality of systematic reviews. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;187:111944.

McIntyre M, Yaacoub S, Perrodeau E, et al. Review of methods to deal with the misalignment of times of eligibility, start of follow-up, and treatment assignment in studies explicitly aimed at emulating target trials. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;185:111898.

Minozzi S, Cinquini M, Arienti C, et al. Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation and Confidence in Network Meta-Analysis showed moderate to substantial concordance in the evaluation of certainty of the evidence. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;184:111811.

Páez A, Nunan D, McCulloch P, et al. The influence of intervention fidelity on treatment effect estimates in clinical trials of complex interventions: a metaepidemiological study. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;177.

Rose CJ, Bidonde J, Ringsten M, et al. Using a Large Language Model (ChatGPT-4o) to Assess the Risk of Bias in Randomized Controlled Trials of Medical Interventions: Interrater Agreement With Human Reviewers. Cochrane Evid Synth Methods. 2025;3(5):e70048.

Sotiropoulos JX, Hunter KE, Aagerup J, et al. Individual participant data informed risk of bias assessments for randomized controlled trials in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;185:111875.

Taji Heravi A, Gryaznov D, Busse JW, et al. Metaresearch on patient-reported outcomes in trial protocols and results publications suggested large outcome reporting bias. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;185:111822.

Tian Y, Lu H, Zhou W, et al. Prospective registration was associated with a reduced risk of bias for randomized controlled trials: a meta-research study. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;184:111813.

Tomlinson E, Yang B, Davenport CF, et al. Piloting QUADAS-3: a revised tool for the quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;188:111983.

Wilkinson J, Heal C, Antoniou GA, et al. Assessing the feasibility and impact of clinical trial trustworthiness checks via an application to Cochrane Reviews: Stage 2 of the INSPECT-SR project. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;184:111824.

Xing X, Lin L, Murad MH, et al. Leveraging AI for Meta-Analysis: Evaluating LLMs in Detecting Publication Bias for Next-Generation Evidence Synthesis. Cochrane Evid Synth Methods. 2025;3(5):e70047.

Zhang X, Xu J, He Q, et al. Immortal time bias tends to be more pronounced in methodological studies than in empirical studies: a metaepidemiological study. J Clin Epidemiol. 2025;187:111936.

Former reading lists

The June 2025 reading list can be found here.

The November 2024 reading list can be found here.

The December 2023 reading list can be found here.

The January 2023 reading list can be found here.

The November 2022 reading list can be found here.

The December 2021 reading list can be found here.

The March 2021 reading list can be found here.

The July 2020 reading list can be found here.

The December 2019 reading list can be found here.

The March 2019 reading list can be found here.

The August 2018 reading list can be found here.

The February 2018 reading list can be found here.