Sponsorship of Australian and New Zealand medical societies by healthcare companies: an observational study

OBJECTIVES: To examine sponsorship of Australian and New Zealand medical societies by healthcare companies and whether societies have policies to deal with conflicts of interest. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study conducted in March 2022. SETTING: Australia and New Zealand PARTICIPANTS: Medical societies in both countries. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The percent of medical societies that list sponsorship from healthcare companies on either their home webpages or the webpages of their annual meetings and/or that issue prospectuses to potential sponsors. The percent of societies with sponsorship that also have policies about their interactions with their sponsors. Whether societies feature their sponsors’ logos on their webpages and have hyperlinks to sponsors’ webpages and what percent of societies' annual revenue comes from sponsorships. RESULTS: Ninety-two medical societies were identified. Sixty-two had healthcare company sponsorship and 10 of the societies with sponsorship had policies to deal with interactions with their sponsors. Fifty-four societies displayed the logos of their sponsors on their home webpages and/or the webpages of their annual meetings. Only 6 societies provided enough information to calculate what percent of their revenue comes from sponsorships. For 5 of the 6 the percent was well below 50%. CONCLUSIONS: The acceptance of sponsorships from healthcare companies by Australian and New Zealand societies is common and few societies have policies to deal with these relationships. In general, societies appear to get only a small percent of their annual revenue from sponsorships.