What Is Evidence Synthesis? | Request a Consultation | Types of Reviews Supported | Levels of Service | Authorship
What Is Evidence Synthesis?
Evidence synthesis is a process of identifying, selecting, and combining multiple studies to inform practice and policy decisions around a topic or specific research question. The process should be done in standardized ways to avoid bias and to be transparent and reproducible. There are many types of evidence syntheses. Systematic reviews are a well-known evidence synthesis review type, but there are other types (e.g., rapid, scoping, umbrella, narrative, meta-analysis with systematic review).
Watch a short video from the Cochrane Collaboration that explains what evidence synthesis is and why we need it.
Request a Consultation
Contact us if you are interested in conducting a type of evidence synthesis. We will send you a checklist to complete before our meeting and help us determine what you need. We can then schedule a virtual meeting to discuss your review.
Additionally, we offer training in conducting types of evidence synthesis. We schedule our evidence synthesis class series several times a year; check the NIH Library Training & Events calendar to view and register for upcoming sessions.
You can also watch our on-demand videos on evidence synthesis for more information.
Types of Reviews Supported
The NIH Library’s Evidence Synthesis Service collaborates with research teams engaged in the conduct of evidence synthesis projects. We support the review types listed below but may also support additional review types as well (Sutton et al., 2019). Contact us about your evidence synthesis idea to learn more.
- Rapid review
- Scoping review
- Systematic review
- Systematic review with meta-analysis
- Umbrella review (also called a review of reviews)
The NIH Library provides support general literature searches and non-systematic literature reviews as well.
Levels of Service
NIH Librarians with specialized training and experience are available to collaborate with you on evidence syntheses by:
- Advising on the correct review type to select
- Refining the research question
- Advising on writing and registering the review protocol
- Selecting appropriate databases and information sources
- Designing, conducting, and documenting search strategies
- Writing search methods following reporting guidelines (e.g., PRISMA reporting guidelines)
- Providing access to and supporting the use of Covidence for screening and data collection
The Librarian working with you may also assist the review team by directing you to appropriate resources or information for other stages of the review.
There is no charge to NIH and HHS customers for our evidence synthesis work. We are not able to provide support to individuals or teams from outside of the NIH or HHS.
Authorship
Given the expertise and significant time commitment involved in this work, NIH Librarians' contributions to most reviews warrant co-authorship on manuscripts. Our work meets the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship and also the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) roles of conceptualization, data curation, and writing. CRediT is a 14-role taxonomy that can be used to describe the key types of contributions typically made to the production and publication of research output such as research articles.
If we only advise on selecting the correct review type and/or refining the research question, we request an acknowledgement statement in your manuscript.
Please speak to the NIH Librarian working with your review team to discuss authorship and review of the final manuscript before submission.