Developing Best Practices for Searching During Public Health Emergencies

Objectives: Information professionals working in hospitals, universities, government agencies, and other settings have been called upon to support medical and health care professionals, public health experts, decision-makers, and guidelines creators throughout the COVID-19 response. COVID-19 literature searching presented searchers with new challenges, including the volume and heterogeneity of information and the proliferation of new databases and information portals, and exposed existing issues in metadata and publishing. Leaders of a voluntary pandemic response organization convened an expert panel to develop a broad, living document of best practices for searching in public health emergencies.

Methods: Project directors and advisors developed core elements from the literature and shared experiences. Experts were identified by affiliation with evidence synthesis groups, COVID-19 response search experience, and nomination. Consensus on core elements was established through an online survey of expert participants. One project director developed guiding questions on the agreed-upon elements, and expert participants provided written responses. Project coordinators synthesized responses to provide the foundation for best practice recommendations and questions for further discussion. Focus group discussions generated consensus on recommendations extracted from written responses and addressed outstanding questions or areas of disagreement. A writing group of expert participants and volunteers drafted the manuscript. Experts then reviewed the statement prior to publication and further dissemination.

Results: Twelve information professionals contributed to best practice recommendations on six elements: core resources (3 recommendations), search strategies (5 recommendations), publication types (3 recommendations), transparency and reproducibility (2 recommendations), collaboration (7 recommendations), and conducting research (3 recommendations). Underlying principles for the recommendations include timeliness, openness, balance, preparedness, and responsiveness.

Conclusions: The authors and experts anticipate the recommendations for searching during public health emergencies will help information specialists, librarians, researchers, and decision-makers respond to future public health emergencies; including, but not limited to disease outbreaks. The recommendations complement existing guidance, including MECIR and PRISMA-S, and address concerns and situations specific to emergency response. The statement is intended to be a living document that should be reviewed following the end of the current Public Health Emergency of International Concern and after the next global health emergency. Future revisions should solicit input from a broader community and reflect conclusions drawn from meta-research on COVID-19 and health emergencies. Changes will be required as technologies, opportunities, and norms evolve, but the underlying principles will remain.