Guide to key COVID-19 evidence sources

If you are not able to find up-to-date, high-quality evidence syntheses on a decision being faced using the COVID-END inventory, you may want to search our guide to key COVID-19 evidence sources. We have already searched seven of these sources for you (see our approach to developing the inventory as well as the flags beside each source whose content is regularly updated in the database that underpins COVID-END inventory). A green flag indicates that it is complete while a yellow flag indicates that it is in progress. The guide was developed by teams from the McMaster Health Forum and Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and with input from the Africa Centre for Evidence.

COVID-END strongly encourages those supporting decision-makers to:

1. start your response to any evidence request by reviewing the COVID-END inventory and this guide to make the most of what little time you or your staff have to find evidence to inform a particular decision
2. prioritize evidence syntheses, technology assessments and guidelines that have already been prepared using a robust process (as identified in the guide), have been rated as high quality by independent assessors (on some of the websites identified in the guide), or have been rated by an experienced team with which you work
3. provide a ‘date stamp’ for any documents you cite (using the exact date of last search for evidence or, if that is not available, the date the document was finalized) given the fast-moving nature of the evidence related to COVID-19

For additional tips and tools to support decision-makers, see here.

To suggest additional key evidence sources related to the COVID-19 pandemic, please email us at covid-end@mcmaster.ca.

Sources of ‘living’ guidelines developed using a robust process

• Living WHO Guideline on Drugs for COVID-19 (drugs only)
• National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Task Force (all clinical-management issues)

Sources of recommendations developed using a robust process (and derivative products)

• Repository of quality-rated guidelines
  • eCOVID Living Map of Recommendations – Quality-rated guidelines plus guideline-contextualization support
  • ECRI Guidelines Trust - Some quality ratings are available for COVID-19 guidelines
• Rapid recommendations typically developed using a robust process
  • Association of American Medical Colleges clinical guidance (U.S.)
  • National Institute for Health and Care Excellence rapid guidelines (U.K.)
  • National Institutes of Health treatment guidelines (U.S.)
  • Once for Scotland guidance (Scotland) (see relevant heading)
  • World Health Organization technical guidance
• Repository of GRADE-based guidelines
  • BIGG
• Registry of planned and ‘in development’ guidelines
• Robust guideline-development platforms
  • MAGICapp – No COVID-19 filter but includes COVID-19 guidelines, including the two living guidelines listed above 
• Derivative products based on recommendations developed using a robust process
  
  • Penn Medicine (public-health measurements and clinical management)

Sources of ‘living’ systematic reviews (and derivative products)

• U.S. Veterans’ Affairs (VA) Evidence Synthesis Program (COVID-END inventory)
  • Inventory of living (and regular) systematic reviews (completed and in progress), with a flag for living reviews and for reviews meeting minimum quality standards

Sources of full systematic reviews (and derivative products)

• Cochrane (COVID-END inventory)
  • Special collections of Cochrane systematic reviews
  • Prioritized Cochrane systematic review updates (same page as above but lower down the page; the rapid reviews are listed in the relevant section below)
• Evidence Aid
  • Summaries of systematic reviews that may be relevant to COVID-19 in eight broad areas (infection prevention and control; clinical characterization and management; therapeutics and vaccines; public-health interventions; health systems and services; epidemiology; ethical considerations; and social science in response), many of which are Cochrane reviews included in the preceding source
• Campbell Collaboration
  • Blog profiling Campbell reviews that are relevant to COVID-19
• Health Systems Evidence and Social Systems Evidence     
  • Systematic reviews and economic evaluations about health- and social-system arrangements presented with their focus on or relevance to COVID-19, quality rating, recency of search (or updating), and countries where the research was conducted
• Usher Network for COVID-19 Evidence Reviews (UNCOVER) (COVID-END inventory)
  • Overview of systematic reviews, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and rapid reviews 

Sources of rapid reviews (1 of several sets of sources) – By global groups

• Cochrane (scroll partway down the page)

Sources of rapid reviews (2 of several sets of sources) – By national groups

• Australia
  • Australian Academy of Science
  • New South Wales’ Agency for Clinical Innovation
• Canada
  • Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (includes an online form for eligible Canadian organizations to submit a request)
  • Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux (reports written in French)
  • SPOR Evidence Alliance | Methods and Applications Group in Indirect Comparisons (MAGIC) Network Meta-Analysis team (both completed and in progress)
• China
  • Campbell China Network
• France
  • Haute Autorité de Santé
  • Santé Publique France
• Ireland
  • Health Information and Quality Authority
• Lebanon
  • Knowledge to Policy Center
• Norway
  • Norwegian Institute of Public Health
• South Africa
  • South African National Department of Health
• United Kingdom
  • National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (see right column; the rapid guidelines are listed in the relevant section above)
  • Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine (the running list of questions that the centre is actively addressing are listed in the relevant section below)
  • Wales COVID-19 Evidence Centre

Sources of protocols for systematic and rapid reviews that are underway

• PROSPERO (includes registered systematic reviews, with a separate search filter for human studies and for animal studies) (COVID-END inventory where prioritized)
• National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools (includes an option to upload more regardless of country where based) (COVID-END inventory)

Sources of titles/questions for systematic and rapid reviews that are being planned

• Cochrane
• Open Science Framework (which includes single studies as well)
• Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine 

Sources of single studies (1 of several sets of sources) – Living evidence maps

• COVID-NMA (living evidence map and living network meta-analysis; evidence profiles about drug treatments are listed in a previous section)
• EPPI Centre (living evidence map of human studies organized by 11 areas of focus)
• Norwegian Institute of Public Health (living evidence map of human, animal, in vitro and in silico studies organized by eight areas of focus, with additional details here)

Sources of single studies (2 of several sets of sources) – Searchable databases of single studies and often systematic reviews as well

• COVID-19+ by McMaster PLUS (includes critically appraised systematic reviews and single studies organized by quality level and document type)
• Innocenti (includes single studies relevant to COVID-19 in children)
• L*VE by Epistemonikos (includes existing systematic reviews of effects and the primary studies, including trials, that were included in the reviews)
• TRIP database (includes systematic reviews and single studies organized by document type)

Government-response trackers

• International Labour Organization (responses related to the economy, jobs/incomes, and workplace protections)
• International Monetary Fund (economic responses)
• PoliMap (public-health, health-system and economic and social responses)
• WHO Regional Office for Europe (health-system responses)