International Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases - Data Archiving and Sharing
Comprehensive policies ensuring research data preservation, accessibility, and responsible sharing practices for STI research.
Data Availability Statement Requirements
All manuscripts submitted to IJSTD must include a Data Availability Statement describing how readers can access the data underlying published findings. This statement appears in the published article and should provide specific information about data location, access procedures, and any restrictions that apply. Authors should select the most open sharing option consistent with ethical and legal constraints applicable to their specific research.
Acceptable data availability options include deposit in recognized public repositories with unrestricted access, deposit in controlled-access repositories requiring registration or data use agreements, availability upon reasonable request from qualified researchers, and restricted availability due to privacy or consent limitations. The statement should be sufficiently detailed that readers understand exactly how to obtain data access.
Public Repository Deposit
The preferred option for non-sensitive data involves deposit in established discipline-specific or general-purpose repositories such as Dryad, Figshare, Zenodo, or domain repositories like the NCBI databases. Public repositories provide permanent accessibility, DOI assignment for citation, version control, and professional data curation services ensuring long-term preservation.
Controlled Access Repositories
For sensitive data requiring access restrictions, deposit in controlled-access repositories such as dbGaP, European Genome-phenome Archive, or institutional data repositories with access review processes may be appropriate. These platforms enable data sharing while protecting participant privacy through managed access procedures.
Available Upon Request
When repository deposit is not feasible, authors may indicate that data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request from qualified researchers. Authors choosing this option must be prepared to respond to legitimate data requests in a timely manner and should specify any conditions for data access.
Restricted Due to Privacy
When data cannot be shared due to participant consent limitations, legal restrictions, or unacceptable privacy risks, authors should explain these restrictions clearly. Consider whether aggregated, anonymized, or synthetic data versions could be made available to support reproducibility while protecting privacy.
Data Sharing Expectations by Study Type
Data sharing expectations vary based on research methodology and the nature of data collected. Laboratory studies generating sequence data should deposit sequences in GenBank or equivalent databases. Clinical trial data should be shared in accordance with ICMJE requirements and applicable regulations. Survey and epidemiological data should be shared to the extent consistent with informed consent and privacy protections.
Qualitative research data including interview transcripts and focus group recordings raise unique privacy considerations and may require greater restrictions on sharing. Authors should describe data availability clearly while explaining any limitations. Mixed methods studies should address quantitative and qualitative data components separately as appropriate.
Self-Archiving and Author Rights
IJSTD supports author self-archiving rights consistent with our open access publishing model. Authors retain copyright to their published work and may share published articles through personal websites, institutional repositories, subject repositories such as PubMed Central, academic social networks, and other platforms immediately upon publication without embargo periods. Proper citation to the published IJSTD version is required.
Authors may also share preprint versions of manuscripts prior to acceptance and throughout the peer review process. We encourage posting preprints to established servers such as medRxiv, bioRxiv, or SSRN to accelerate knowledge dissemination particularly for time-sensitive public health findings. Preprints should be updated with final publication details upon article acceptance.
Privacy Protection Requirements: All shared data must be appropriately de-identified following applicable guidelines such as HIPAA Safe Harbor or Expert Determination methods. Direct identifiers must be removed and indirect identifiers minimized. Authors are responsible for ensuring shared data cannot reasonably be used to identify individual research participants.
Consent Considerations: Data sharing plans should be consistent with informed consent obtained from research participants. Authors should review consent documents carefully and seek ethics committee guidance when uncertainty exists about whether consent permits specific sharing arrangements.
Long-Term Data Preservation
Authors should consider long-term data preservation beyond immediate sharing requirements. Established repositories provide professional curation and commitment to multi-decade preservation. Institutional data archives may offer appropriate preservation services for sensitive data requiring access controls. Authors should ensure data remain accessible throughout the expected useful life of the published research.
For studies generating large or complex datasets, authors should include documentation enabling future users to understand and appropriately analyze shared data. This includes codebooks defining variables, data dictionaries explaining coding schemes, and methodological documentation describing data collection and processing procedures.
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