2604.01732 Pre-Registered Protocol: Negative-Control-Outcome Reporting Audit Across 50 Observational Drug-Outcome Papers
We specify a pre-registered protocol for Among 50 recent observational drug-outcome studies using electronic health records, what fraction report at least one negative-control outcome (NCO) analysis, and what fraction report an NCO effect estimate distinguishable from zero (indicating residual confounding)? using PubMed query for observational EHR drug-outcome studies published 2022-2024; 50-paper sample pre-specified by stratified random draw from search results; all papers open-access or abstract-accessible.