Trends in non-research payments to allergists between 2016 and 2020
The aggregate sum of non-research payments to allergists showed an upward trend from $7.8 million in 2016 to $10.0 million in 2019 but experienced a downturn to $8.4 million in 2020 (Table 3). During the period of 2016 to 2019, between 40.3% and 42.2% of all allergists received non-research payments from pharmaceutical companies, whereas this proportion contracted to 36.0% (comprising 1418 allergists) in 2020. The median annual payments to those allergists who received payments increased from $1,332 in 2016 to $1,526 in 2019. The payments per allergist each year significantly increased by 7.7% (95% CI: 5.0 – 10.6, p<0.001) from 2016 to 2019. There was no significant trend in the number of allergists receiving payments during the same span. Contrarily, there was a significant reduction of 14.8% (95% CI: -17.9% to -11.5%, p<0.001) in the number of allergists receiving payments and a 21.2% decrease (95% CI: -25.4% to -16.8%, p<0.001) in payments per allergist in 2020 when compared to the preceding years.
In sensitivity analyses that only included data from the 54 companies making consistent payments over the five-year period, there was a 7.2% annual increase (95% CI: 4.4% – 10.0%, p<0.001) in payments per allergist from 2016 to 2019. Yet, in 2020, both the number of allergists receiving payments and the amount of payments per allergist diminished significantly by 14.8% (95% CI: -17.4% to -10.7%, p<0.001) and 20.4% (95% CI: -24.6% to -15.9%, p<0.001), respectively.