ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Doping in Two Elite Athletics Competitions Assessed
by Randomized-Response Surveys
Rolf Ulrich
1
•
Harrison G. Pope Jr.
2,3
•
Le
´
a Cle
´
ret
4
•
Andrea Petro
´
czi
5,6
•
Tama
´
s Nepusz
5,7
•
Jay Schaffer
8
•
Gen Kanayama
2,3
•
R. Dawn Com stock
9
•
Perikles Sim on
10
Published online: 28 August 2017
� Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Abstract
Background Doping in sports compromises fair play and
endangers health. To deter doping among elite athletes, the
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) oversees testing of
several hundred thousand athletic blood and urine samples
annually, of which 1–2% test positive. Measures using the
Athlete Biological Passport suggest a higher mean preva-
lence of about 14% positive tests. Biological testing,
however, likely fails to detect many cutting-edge doping
techniques, and thus the true prevalence of doping remains
unknown.
Methods We surveyed 2167 ath letes at two spor ting
events: the 13th International Association of Athletics
Federations Word Championships in A thletics (WCA)
in Daegu, South Korea in August 2011 and the 12th
Quadrennial Pan-Arab Games (PAG) in Doha, Qatar in
December 2011. To estimate the prevalence of doping,
we utilized a ‘‘randomized response technique,’’ which
guarantees anonymity for individuals when answering a
sensitive question. We also administered a control
question at PAG assessing past-year use of
supplements.
Results The estimated prevalence of past-year doping was
43.6% (95% confidence interval 39.4–47.9) at WCA and
57.1% (52.4–61.8) at PAG. The estimated prevalence of
past-year supplement use at PAG was 70.1%
(65.6–74.7% ). Sensitivity analyses, assessing the robus t-
ness of these estimates under numerous hypothetical sce-
narios of intentional or unintent ional noncompliance by
respondents, suggested that we were unlikely to have
overestimated the true prevalence of doping.
Conclusions Doping appears remarkably widesp read
among elite athletes, and remains largely unchecked
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this
article (doi:10.1007/s40279-017-0765-4) contains supplementary
material, which is available to authorized users.
& Harrison G. Pope Jr.
hpope@mclean.harvard.edu
1
Department of Psychology, University of Tu
¨
bingen, 72076
Tu
¨
bingen, Germany
2
Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, McLean Hospital,
Belmont, MA 02478, USA
3
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston,
MA, USA
4
Sport and Exercise Science, Swansea University, Swansea,
UK
5
School of Life Sciences, Pharmacy and Chemistry, Kingston
University, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE, UK
6
Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield,
Sheffield S10 2TP, UK
7
Faculty of Logistics, Molde University College, Molde,
Norway
8
Department of Applied Statistics and Research Methods,
University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO, USA
9
Pediatric Injury Prevention, Education, and Research
Program, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, CO,
USA
10
Department of Sports Medicine, Rehabilitation and Disease
Prevention, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55131
Mainz, Germany
123
Sports Med (2018) 48:211–219
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-017-0765-4