16 Jul 07

Professor Doug Altman has won the annual Award for Meritorious Achievement from the Council of Scientific Editors (CSE) for his work to improve the standards of reporting of clinical research.

Professor Altman is Director of the Centre for Statistics in Medicine at the University of Oxford, which incorporates the Cancer Research UK Medical Statistics Group. He is a leading expert in the field of health research methodology, statistics and reporting, and has been involved with various projects to lay down guidelines about good reporting.

Reporting standards aim to ensure that when research is published in peer-reviewed journals, it clearly outlines how the research was conducted and what it found. 'It's no good having brilliantly designed, meticulously conducted research if no-one can read about it properly afterwards,' says Professor Altman. 'If you don't pass on the knowledge you've gained, and how you gained it, properly, you may as well not have done the work in the first place.'

He explains: 'Research can't be judged by other people, including peer review panels, if it's not crystal clear what people actually did and what they found. These sound like basic ideas - you'd expect everyone was already spelling all this out - but there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that clear, transparent reporting of research doesn't routinely happen.

'Reporting guidelines, by highlighting the minimum necessary information that needs to be reported, can also help researchers to plan and execute their studies more thoroughly. Improved reporting can lead to better quality research.'

Professor Altman is one of the key movers of the CONSORT Group, which produced the CONSORT Statement, a widely-recognised guideline for reporting the methods and results of randomised controlled medical trials. He has been involved in the development of several other reporting guidelines, such as REMARK (for tumour marker prognostic studies), the STROBE statement (for observational studies), and QUOROM (for systematic reviews). He is also involved in extensive research into the quality of reporting.

Professor Altman recently co-founded the EQUATOR Network (Enhancing theQUAlity and Transparency Of health Research). This new initiative will facilitate good research reporting by providing resources and training courses for authors, editors and peer reviewers.