Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) requires real-time data and information from the peer-reviewed scientific literature to inform daily decisions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Objectives: To describe the development, maintenance, and dissemination of search results and a bibliographic database related to COVID-19 for WHO staff and for public access.
Methods: WHO senior management requested daily searches for the COVID-19 to support the COVID-19 Incident Management Team (IMT) on 20 Jan 2020. Information scientists and systematic review and guideline experts at WHO developed search strategies and selected relevant journals and publisher web-sites. Screening and dissemination started on 26 Jan 2020: manual searches were conducted each weekday, and citations were compiled using EndNote, then imported and deduplicated in Covidence. Simple inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed, and initially two screeners reviewed titles and abstracts for inclusion. Each included citation was then tagged with study design (e.g. case series) and with a broad topic area (e.g. clinical characterization). The daily output was a list of citations in WORD, including DOIs, and disseminated to key IMT members.
We then developed a searchable database in Microsoft Power Bl, implemented 12 February 2020 on the WHO public web-site, while daily feeds to IMT continued. The database was downloadable in various formats. We improved the search interface using BIREME, launched on 9 April 2020. BIREME is a Specialized Center of PAHO/AMRO (https://www.paho.org/en/evidence-and-intelligence-action-health).
Results: The daily number of citations increased progressively, starting with 8 on 26 January growing to 1,120 on 14 April. Daily hand searches were maintained in order to avoid indexing delays with proprietary bibliographic databases. Public usage was monitored and steadily increased, with approximately 100,000 visitors daily to the Microsoft Power BI database. Given demands on staff time during the outbreak, a formal evaluation of use by WHO staff was not performed.
Challenges were encountered during development and implementation of the database. First, the project was very resource intensive, taking a full-time library staff, technical support and screener time. This decreased as streamlining and augmented technological approaches were implemented. Second, there was a large amount of research that was published in Chinese and in Chinese-based journals which initially we did not have the capacity to search. Third, we had difficulty identifying key studies to draw to the attention of the IMT. Fourth, the database had to serve two audiences: WHO’s staff dealing with the outbreak and a diverse external audience.
Conclusions: Daily searches and a searchable database were achieved to help meet the needs of WHO’s COVID-19 IMT as well as an external audience. The lessons learned will facilitate the development and implementation of a bibliographic database in future public health emergencies.
Objectives: To describe the development, maintenance, and dissemination of search results and a bibliographic database related to COVID-19 for WHO staff and for public access.
Methods: WHO senior management requested daily searches for the COVID-19 to support the COVID-19 Incident Management Team (IMT) on 20 Jan 2020. Information scientists and systematic review and guideline experts at WHO developed search strategies and selected relevant journals and publisher web-sites. Screening and dissemination started on 26 Jan 2020: manual searches were conducted each weekday, and citations were compiled using EndNote, then imported and deduplicated in Covidence. Simple inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed, and initially two screeners reviewed titles and abstracts for inclusion. Each included citation was then tagged with study design (e.g. case series) and with a broad topic area (e.g. clinical characterization). The daily output was a list of citations in WORD, including DOIs, and disseminated to key IMT members.
We then developed a searchable database in Microsoft Power Bl, implemented 12 February 2020 on the WHO public web-site, while daily feeds to IMT continued. The database was downloadable in various formats. We improved the search interface using BIREME, launched on 9 April 2020. BIREME is a Specialized Center of PAHO/AMRO (https://www.paho.org/en/evidence-and-intelligence-action-health).
Results: The daily number of citations increased progressively, starting with 8 on 26 January growing to 1,120 on 14 April. Daily hand searches were maintained in order to avoid indexing delays with proprietary bibliographic databases. Public usage was monitored and steadily increased, with approximately 100,000 visitors daily to the Microsoft Power BI database. Given demands on staff time during the outbreak, a formal evaluation of use by WHO staff was not performed.
Challenges were encountered during development and implementation of the database. First, the project was very resource intensive, taking a full-time library staff, technical support and screener time. This decreased as streamlining and augmented technological approaches were implemented. Second, there was a large amount of research that was published in Chinese and in Chinese-based journals which initially we did not have the capacity to search. Third, we had difficulty identifying key studies to draw to the attention of the IMT. Fourth, the database had to serve two audiences: WHO’s staff dealing with the outbreak and a diverse external audience.
Conclusions: Daily searches and a searchable database were achieved to help meet the needs of WHO’s COVID-19 IMT as well as an external audience. The lessons learned will facilitate the development and implementation of a bibliographic database in future public health emergencies.