Improving ranking for systematic reviews using query adaptation

Identifying relevant studies for inclusion in systematic reviews requires significant effort from human experts who manually screen large numbers of studies. The problem is made more difficult by the growing volume of medical literature and Information Retrieval techniques have proved to be useful to reduce workload. Reviewers are often interested in particular types of evidence such as Diagnostic Test Accuracy studies. This paper explores the use of query adaption to identify particular types of evidence and thereby reduce the workload placed on reviewers. A simple retrieval system that ranks studies using TF.IDF weighted cosine similarity was implemented. The Log-Likelihood, ChiSquared and Odds-Ratio lexical statistics and relevance feedback were used to generate sets of terms that indicate evidence relevant to Diagnostic Test Accuracy reviews. Experiments using a set of 80 systematic reviews from the CLEF2017 and CLEF2018 eHealth tasks demonstrate that the approach improves retrieval performance

Using automation to produce a ‘living map’ of the COVID-19 research literature

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted life worldwide and presented unique challenges in the health evidencesynthesis space. The urgent nature of the pandemic required extreme rapidity for keeping track of research, andthis presented a unique opportunity for long-proposed automation systems to be deployed and evaluated. Wecompared the use of novel automation technologies with conventional manual screening; and Microsoft AcademicGraph (MAG) with the MEDLINE and Embase databases locating the emerging research evidence. We foundthat a new workflow involving machine learning to identify relevant research in MAG achieved a much higherrecall with lower manual effort than using conventional approaches

Economic instruments for population diet and physical activity behaviour change: a systematic scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Unhealthy diet and low levels of physical activity are common behavioural factors in the aetiology of many non-communicable diseases. Recent years have witnessed an upsurge of policy and research interest in the use of taxes and other economic instruments to improve population health. OBJECTIVE: To assemble, configure and analyse empirical research studies available to inform the public health case for using economic instruments to promote dietary and physical activity behaviour change. METHODS: We conducted a systematic scoping review of evidence for the effects of specific interventions to change, or general exposure to variations in, prices or income on dietary and physical activity behaviours and corollary outcomes. Systematic electronic searches and parallel snowball searches retrieved >1 million study records. Text mining technologies were used to prioritise title-abstract records for screening. Eligible studies were selected, classified and analysed in terms of key characteristics and principal findings, using a narrative, configuring synthesis focused on implications for policy and further research. RESULTS: We identified 880 eligible studies, including 192 intervention studies and 768 studies that incorporated evidence for prices or income as correlates or determinants of target outcomes. Current evidence for the effects of economic instruments and exposures on diet and physical activity is limited in quality and equivocal in terms of its policy implications. Direct evidence for the effects of economic instruments is heavily skewed towards impacts on diet, with a relative lack of evidence for impacts on physical activity. CONCLUSIONS: The evidence-based case for using economic instruments to promote dietary and physical activity behaviour change may be less compelling than some proponents have claimed. Future research should include measurement of people's actual behavioural responses using study designs capable of generating reliable causal inferences regarding intervention effects. Policy implementation needs to be carefully aligned with evaluation planning and design

Pinpointing needles in giant haystacks: use of text mining to reduce impractical screening workload in extremely large scoping reviews.

In scoping reviews, boundaries of relevant evidence may be initially fuzzy, with refined conceptual understanding of interventions and their proposed mechanisms of action an intended output of the scoping process rather than its starting point. Electronic searches are therefore sensitive, often retrieving very large record sets that are impractical to screen in their entirety. This paper describes methods for applying and evaluating the use of text mining (TM) technologies to reduce impractical screening workload in reviews, using examples of two extremely large-scale scoping reviews of public health evidence (choice architecture (CA) and economic environment (EE)). Electronic searches retrieved >800,000 (CA) and >1 million (EE) records. TM technologies were used to prioritise records for manual screening. TM performance was measured prospectively. TM reduced manual screening workload by 90% (CA) and 88% (EE) compared with conventional screening (absolute reductions of ≈430 000 (CA) and ≈378 000 (EE) records). This study expands an emerging corpus of empirical evidence for the use of TM to expedite study selection in reviews. By reducing screening workload to manageable levels, TM made it possible to assemble and configure large, complex evidence bases that crossed research discipline boundaries. These methods are transferable to other scoping and systematic reviews incorporating conceptual development or explanatory dimensions

Socioeconomic differences in purchases of more vs. less healthy foods and beverages: analysis of over 25,000 British households in 2010.

Socioeconomic inequalities in diet-related health outcomes are well-recognised, but are not fully explained by observational studies of consumption. We provide a novel analysis to identify purchasing patterns more precisely, based on data for take-home food and beverage purchases from 25,674 British households in 2010. To examine socioeconomic differences (measured by occupation), we conducted regression analyses on the proportion of energy purchased from (a) each of 43 food or beverage categories and (b) major nutrients. Results showed numerous small category-level socioeconomic differences. Aggregation of the categories showed lower SES groups generally purchased a greater proportion of energy from less healthy foods and beverages than those in higher SES groups (65% and 60%, respectively), while higher SES groups purchased a greater proportion of energy from healthier food and beverages (28% vs. 24%). At the nutrient-level, socioeconomic differences were less marked, although higher SES was associated with purchasing greater proportions of fibre, protein and total sugars, and smaller proportions of sodium. The observed pattern of purchasing across SES groups contributes to the explanation of observed health differences between groups and highlights targets for interventions to reduce health inequalities

Altering micro-environments to change population health behaviour: towards an evidence base for choice architecture interventions.

BACKGROUND: The idea that behaviour can be influenced at population level by altering the environments within which people make choices (choice architecture) has gained traction in policy circles. However, empirical evidence to support this idea is limited, especially its application to changing health behaviour. We propose an evidence-based definition and typology of choice architecture interventions that have been implemented within small-scale micro-environments and evaluated for their effects on four key sets of health behaviours: diet, physical activity, alcohol and tobacco use. DISCUSSION: We argue that the limitations of the evidence base are due not simply to an absence of evidence, but also to a prior lack of definitional and conceptual clarity concerning applications of choice architecture to public health intervention. This has hampered the potential for systematic assessment of existing evidence. By seeking to address this issue, we demonstrate how our definition and typology have enabled systematic identification and preliminary mapping of a large body of available evidence for the effects of choice architecture interventions. We discuss key implications for further primary research, evidence synthesis and conceptual development to support the design and evaluation of such interventions. SUMMARY: This conceptual groundwork provides a foundation for future research to investigate the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions within micro-environments for changing health behaviour. The approach we used may also serve as a template for mapping other under-explored fields of enquiry

Altering the availability or proximity of food, alcohol and tobacco products to change their selection and consumption

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows: 1. To assess the impact of altering the availability or proximity of: a) food products (including non-alcoholic beverages); b) alcohol products; and c) tobacco products on their selection or consumption. 2. For each of the above products, to assess the extent to which the impact of such interventions is modified by: i) study characteristics; ii) intervention characteristics; and iii) participant characteristics.Production of this protocol was funded by the Department of Health Policy Research Programme in England ([PR-UN-0409-10109] Policy Research Unit in Behaviour and Health). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Department of Health in England

Living systematic reviews:2. Combining human and machine effort

New approaches to evidence synthesis, which utilise human effort and machine automation in mutually reinforcing ways, can enhance the feasibility and sustainability of living systematic reviews. Human effort is a scarce and valuable resource, required when automation is impossible or undesirable, and includes contributions from online communities ('crowds') as well as more conventional contributions from review authors and information specialists. Automation can assist with some systematic review tasks, including searching, eligibility assessment, identification and retrieval of full text reports, extraction of data, and risk of bias assessment. Workflows can be developed in which human effort and machine automation can each enable the other to operate in more effective and efficient ways, offering substantial enhancement to the productivity of systematic reviews. This paper describes and discusses the potential - and limitations - of new ways of undertaking specific tasks in living systematic reviews, identifying areas where these human / machine 'technologies' are already in use, and where further research and development is needed. While the context is living systematic reviews, many of these enabling technologies apply equally to standard approaches to systematic reviewing

Implementation of the national antimicrobial stewardship competencies for UK undergraduate healthcare professional education within undergraduate pharmacy programmes: a survey of UK schools of pharmacy.

Pharmacists play a key role in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS). Consensus-based national AMS competencies for undergraduate healthcare professionals in the UK reflect the increasing emphasis on competency-based healthcare professional education. However, the extent to which these are included within undergraduate pharmacy education programmes in the UK is unknown. To explore which of the AMS competencies are delivered, including when and at which level, within UK undergraduate MPharm programmes. A cross-sectional online questionnaire captured the level of study of the MPharm programme in which each competency was taught, the method of delivery and assessment of AMS education, and examples of student feedback. Ten institutions completed the survey (33% response rate). No institution reported covering all 54 AMS competencies and 5 of these were taught at half or fewer of the institutions. Key gaps were identified around taking samples, communication, outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy and surgical prophylaxis. The minimum time dedicated to AMS teaching differed between institutions (range 9–119 h), teaching was generally through didactic methods, and assessment was generally through knowledge recall and objective structured clinical examinations. Feedback from students suggests they find AMS and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to be complex yet important topics. UK schools of pharmacy should utilize the competency framework to identify gaps in their AMS, AMR and infection teaching. To prepare newly qualified pharmacists to be effective at delivering AMS and prescribing antimicrobials, schools of pharmacy should utilize more simulated environments and clinical placements for education and assessment of AMS