This article has not been peer reviewed or clinically reviewed. It is educational and is not individual medical advice.
The Short Answer
Funding and disclosed relationships may be reported in more than one place. Look for a funding statement, author disclosure statements or forms, a data-access statement, and, where one is cited, a protocol. Each answers a different question. None of them, on its own, tells you whether a result is right or wrong.
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) says that having a relationship or activity does not always indicate a problematic influence on a paper's content. It also says perceptions of conflict matter, and that readers must be able to judge for themselves whether a relationship is pertinent. That is a sound posture for a reader: treat disclosures as information to weigh, not as a verdict. (ICMJE, Section II.B)
Disclosure Locator: What Each Item Can and Cannot Establish
1. Funding Statement (Sometimes Labeled “Sources of Support”)
- Can establish: who directly supported the work. ICMJE says a funding statement should include only direct support of the work described, and that support for an individual's time should be reported as such, separately from funding of the work itself.
- Can also establish: the sponsor's stated role. ICMJE says source-of-support statements should name sponsors and explain any role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing, or restrictions on submitting the report for publication, or state that the source had no such involvement or restrictions.
- Cannot establish: whether a funder actually influenced the work. As a reader, remember that a statement is a report, not an independent check. A named funder is not proof of bias.
2. Author Disclosure Statements or Forms
- Can establish: the relationships and activities the authors reported. ICMJE lists financial examples such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria, patents, and paid expert testimony. It also says non-financial interests, such as personal relationships, rivalries, academic competition, and intellectual beliefs, may represent or be perceived as conflicts.
- Cannot establish: whether a listed relationship affected the paper, or that every relevant relationship was listed. ICMJE places the responsibility for disclosing relationships on authors.
3. Acknowledgments
- Can establish: who the authors chose to thank. The ICMJE page cited here does not address acknowledgments, so this article makes no claim about what journals require in that section.
- Reader step: check whether an organization or person appears in the acknowledgments that does not appear in the funding statement or disclosures. If so, treat it as a question to raise, not a conclusion.
- Cannot establish: the nature of any support, unless the text says so.
4. Data-Access Statement
- Can establish: whether the authors say they had access to the study data. ICMJE says articles should declare this, explaining the nature and extent of access and whether it is ongoing.
- Also worth knowing: ICMJE says editors may ask authors of a study sponsored by a funder with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome to sign a statement confirming full data access and responsibility for the analysis. It also says authors must avoid agreements with sponsors that interfere with their access to the data or their ability to analyze, interpret, and publish independently.
- Cannot establish: that the analysis was sound. Access to data is not the same as a correct analysis.
5. Protocol or Registration Record (When One Is Cited)
- What we can say: the sources reviewed for this article do not describe what a protocol or registry record must contain, so we make no claim about that.
- Reader step: if the paper cites a protocol or registration, open it. Check whether it names a sponsor or funder, and compare that with the paper's funding statement. Treat a mismatch as a question to ask, not a finding.
- Cannot establish: anything the record does not contain. An absent detail is not evidence of a problem.
A Five-Step Way to Use the Locator
- Find the funding statement and note each named funder and any stated role.
- Read the author disclosures and note financial and non-financial relationships that relate to the topic studied.
- Check for a data-access statement and any statement about restrictions on publication.
- Compare the acknowledgments and any cited protocol against the funding statement for gaps or mismatches.
- Write down what is unclear. Then weigh the result using the study's design and data, with the disclosures as context.
What Not to Conclude
- Do not assume industry or commercial funding makes a result false. A disclosed relationship is a reason to read more carefully, not to dismiss the work.
- Do not assume a clean disclosure makes a result reliable. Design, sample, outcomes, and analysis still matter.
- Do not treat a missing statement as proof of wrongdoing. It is a reason to look for the information elsewhere, or to ask the journal or the authors.
Limits and When to Seek Professional Advice
This article explains how to locate disclosures. It does not assess any particular study, and it cannot tell you whether a result applies to you. If a study is influencing a decision about your health, medication, or treatment, discuss it with a qualified clinician or pharmacist before acting. This site's Medical Disclaimer page explains the limits of its content.
What You Can Do Next
- Pick one study you are relying on and complete the five steps above.
- If a funding or disclosure statement is missing or unclear, contact the journal or corresponding author and ask.
- To see how this site describes its sourcing and review limits, read Editorial Team and Review Process and About Med Clin Res.
Source
- International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Disclosure of Financial and Non-Financial Relationships and Activities, and Conflicts of Interest (Recommendations, Section II.B). Accessed September 30, 2026.