Article type
Year
Abstract
Background:
Identifying studies that are relevant to public health can be challenging. The public health field is broad, and interventions are often complex, involving many varied settings, communities and populations. The Cochrane Public Health Group’s (CPHG) focus is on interventions that address the structural and social determinants of health, operating at the level of community, systems, policy, legislation and regulation. This includes interventions and contexts that operate outside the health service system, such as education, transport, the built environment, agriculture, child care and social services. Finding studies that evaluate such interventions is difficult, as there is a lack of uniform terminology to describe and organise the field and the non-randomised trials that are frequently used in this area of public health. Also, often the studies are not formally published in peer-reviewed journals. The combination of these elements can require the use of more considered search methods.
Objectives:
This current project follows on from a poster that was presented at the 20th Cochrane Colloquium in 2012 (Morgan HE et al) 'Finding public health evidence: how many stones need to be turned?’. The findings from the analysis of 12 Cochrane Reviews relevant to the public health field identified that supplementary search methods (e.g. reference list follow-up and expert contact) are essential to public health intervention reviews. This current work will specifically analyse nine CPHG reviews to determine the importance of a multi-database search in addition to the use of supplementary methods when conducting a CPHG review.
Methods:
From the nine reviews we will identify how many of the included studies were indexed in MEDLINE and if supplementary methods could have identified all the studies not indexed in MEDLINE.
Results:
We will provide data on the numbers of studies that are cited in MEDLINE for each review and the supplementary methods that are also required.
Conclusions:
The results will help improve the guidance provided to CPHG authors in conducting their searches and thereby allow the searching to be conducted more effectively.
Identifying studies that are relevant to public health can be challenging. The public health field is broad, and interventions are often complex, involving many varied settings, communities and populations. The Cochrane Public Health Group’s (CPHG) focus is on interventions that address the structural and social determinants of health, operating at the level of community, systems, policy, legislation and regulation. This includes interventions and contexts that operate outside the health service system, such as education, transport, the built environment, agriculture, child care and social services. Finding studies that evaluate such interventions is difficult, as there is a lack of uniform terminology to describe and organise the field and the non-randomised trials that are frequently used in this area of public health. Also, often the studies are not formally published in peer-reviewed journals. The combination of these elements can require the use of more considered search methods.
Objectives:
This current project follows on from a poster that was presented at the 20th Cochrane Colloquium in 2012 (Morgan HE et al) 'Finding public health evidence: how many stones need to be turned?’. The findings from the analysis of 12 Cochrane Reviews relevant to the public health field identified that supplementary search methods (e.g. reference list follow-up and expert contact) are essential to public health intervention reviews. This current work will specifically analyse nine CPHG reviews to determine the importance of a multi-database search in addition to the use of supplementary methods when conducting a CPHG review.
Methods:
From the nine reviews we will identify how many of the included studies were indexed in MEDLINE and if supplementary methods could have identified all the studies not indexed in MEDLINE.
Results:
We will provide data on the numbers of studies that are cited in MEDLINE for each review and the supplementary methods that are also required.
Conclusions:
The results will help improve the guidance provided to CPHG authors in conducting their searches and thereby allow the searching to be conducted more effectively.