LibGuides: Systematic Reviews for Public Health: About Systematic Reviews

What is a Systematic Review?

A systematic review is a review of scientific studies on a specific topic. It uses a formal process to:

Evidence-Based Public Health: A Fundamental Concept for Public Health Practice
This article explains the tools and implementation of EBPH. See Table 5 for a great checklist for evaluating methodologic rigor of systematic reviews.

Systematic Reviews are an important analytic tool for Evidence-Based Public Health (EBPH).

What is the best available evidence for what works to improve population health?

CASP Checklists
Critical appraisal tools are designed to be used when reading research.
Levels of Evidence (OCEBM)
Evaluate the appropriateness of evidence. From the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine.
AMSTAR
A measurement tool to assess the methodological quality of systematic reviews.
PRISMA
Guidelines for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
PRISMA-P
Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols.
JAMAevidence
Includes Users Guide to the Medical Literature. Includes this Education Guide: http://www.jamaevidence.com/edGuideSlides/9000094

Systematic Review Methods
How to conduct systematic reviews of interventions to learn what works to promote public health. From the Community Preventive Services Task Force.

Resources for "How To" do a Systematic Review

Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions
This is THE resource for detailed instructions for conducting a healthcare systematic review. From the Cochrane Community.
Systematic Reviews of Health Promotion and Public Health Interventions
For use within the Cochrane Collaboration.
Systematic review and meta-analysis methodology
Provides "a practical approach to preparing and critically appraising a systematic review."
Five steps to conducting a systematic review
This 2003 article covers the basics rather nicely.
Methods Guide for Effectiveness and Comparative Effectiveness Reviews
From AHRQ.
Finding What Works in Healthcare
Standards for systematic reviews from the U.S. Institute of Medicine.