Article type
Abstract
Background: Climate change has become increasingly prominent and has seriously threatened human health. Governments around the world are seeking initiatives to improve air pollution and extreme temperatures, as well as reduce the public health burden and costs associated with climate change. Environmental health guidelines are a key tool for assessing the impacts of climate change. The aim of environmental health guidelines is to protect people from the adverse effects of air pollution and to assess whether and to what extent the exposure of populations to air pollutants at various concentration levels causes health problems. However, the reliability of environmental health guidelines is largely overestimated. Evaluation of the reporting quality on environmental health guidelines is essential.
Objective: To systematically analyze the current status of guidelines on the health effects of climate change, as well as to understand the problems with the reporting quality of guidelines.
Methods: The World Health Organization; NatureWatch, Interpretation and Conservation Education; Guidelines International Library; SIGN and PubMed; China National Knowledge Infrastructure; and Chinese Biomedical databases were systematically searched from database establishment to February 8, 2024. Inclusion criteria as follows: (1) Published guidelines and expert consensus on the health effects of climate change; (2) when a guide is updated, we included the latest version; (3) the outcome is health. Reporting Items for Practice Guidelines in Healthcare (RIGHT) was used to evaluate the reporting quality of guidelines. It includes 22 sections/topics and 35 items. Studies were selected manually, coded, and evaluated by two reviewers independently, and any conflicts were discussed with a third reviewer.
Results: There are seven guidelines for the health effects of air pollution and five guidelines for the health effects of extreme temperatures. The findings as follows: (1) 12.7 (36.3%) RIGHT items were reported in each guideline on overage, with only two guidelines reporting more than 60% of the items; (2) seven guidelines (58.3%) reported "guideline(s)" or "recommendation(s)" in the title; (3) regarding the evidence section, the reporting rate of each item is less than 50%; no guidelines reported the role of funder.
Conclusion: Reporting the quality evaluation of climate change guidelines needs to be improved. Because of the topic difference, it is recommended that reporting checklists applicable to climate change guidelines are developed in the future.
Objective: To systematically analyze the current status of guidelines on the health effects of climate change, as well as to understand the problems with the reporting quality of guidelines.
Methods: The World Health Organization; NatureWatch, Interpretation and Conservation Education; Guidelines International Library; SIGN and PubMed; China National Knowledge Infrastructure; and Chinese Biomedical databases were systematically searched from database establishment to February 8, 2024. Inclusion criteria as follows: (1) Published guidelines and expert consensus on the health effects of climate change; (2) when a guide is updated, we included the latest version; (3) the outcome is health. Reporting Items for Practice Guidelines in Healthcare (RIGHT) was used to evaluate the reporting quality of guidelines. It includes 22 sections/topics and 35 items. Studies were selected manually, coded, and evaluated by two reviewers independently, and any conflicts were discussed with a third reviewer.
Results: There are seven guidelines for the health effects of air pollution and five guidelines for the health effects of extreme temperatures. The findings as follows: (1) 12.7 (36.3%) RIGHT items were reported in each guideline on overage, with only two guidelines reporting more than 60% of the items; (2) seven guidelines (58.3%) reported "guideline(s)" or "recommendation(s)" in the title; (3) regarding the evidence section, the reporting rate of each item is less than 50%; no guidelines reported the role of funder.
Conclusion: Reporting the quality evaluation of climate change guidelines needs to be improved. Because of the topic difference, it is recommended that reporting checklists applicable to climate change guidelines are developed in the future.