Sports sociologists from the University of Saarbrücken have investigated the prevalence of doping among top German athletes in several surveys. They use a refined version of the randomized response method (cf. module on Randomized response), which enables them to determine the proportion of study participants who do not follow instructions and are therefore classified as "cheaters" in terms of their survey behavior. In this way, scientists can specify an interval whose lower limit determines the proportion of athletes who are considered "honest" dopers and whose upper limit represents the proportion of honest non-dopers. Across all sports, the proportion of top German athletes who actually engage in doping is accordingly at least 10 % and at most 35 %.

A survey of 480 top junior German athletes concluded that 6.8 % had already used doping substances. The study demonstrates the benefit of the randomized response method, inasmuch as only 0.2 % admitted to using doping substances when a standard survey method was used:

Another study, which does not exclusively refer to top German athletes, but which, like the aforementioned survey, underlines the value of the Randomized Response Technique compared to exclusively biological testing methods for determining the prevalence of doping in sports, was financed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and examined a total of 2167 athletes at two different international sporting events. It comes to the conclusion that, on the one hand, doping is very widespread among top athletes and, on the other hand, that by using the Randomized Response Technique it can be shown that the prevalence of doping seems to be much higher than the merely biological testing methods initially suggest:

A very specific insight into the field of German athletics in the 1960s, 70s and 80s and the use of anabolic substances as a means of doping there is provided by the dissertation by Simon Krivec . Here, twelve case studies of individual German national athletes in the period from 1960 to 1988 are examined from an interdisciplinary perspective, as well as the state of research at that time with regard to anabolic-androgenic steroids. A list of currently banned anabolic-androgenic steroids can be found in the current World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List in section S1 (cf. module World Anti-Doping Agency [WADA]).