Developing Global Norms for Sharing Data and Results during Public Health Emergencies

"Summary Points

• Leading stakeholders from around the world convened at a WHO consultation in September 2015, where they affirmed that timely and transparent sharing of data and results during public health emergencies must become the global norm.
• Representatives from major biomedical journals who attended the meeting agreed that public disclosure of information of relevance to public health emergencies should not be delayed by publication timelines and that early disclosure should not and will not prejudice later journal publication.
• Researchers should be responsible for the accuracy of shared preliminary results, ensuring that they have been subjected to sufficient quality control before public dissemination.
• Opting in to data sharing should be the default practice, and the onus should be placed on data generators and stewards at the local, national, and international level to explain any decision to opt out from sharing data and results during public health emergencies.
• Incentives for sharing data should be created and tailored for each type of data generator and steward, while data management and analysis expertise is enhanced in under-resourced settings...."