Although data collected outside traditional RCT are essential to decision-making, the 'real-world' label is a rhetorical construct that obscures study design and introduces an illusion of objective truth. Because all scientific inquiry is limited by the observer's methods, 'real-world' claims are essentially fallacious. To promote transparency, researchers should abandon RWE-related terminology in favor of precise study labelling and explicit disclosures of data source limitations.
Zanini et al. (Sun,) studied this question.