"One more time": why replicating some syntheses of evidence relevant to COVID-19 makes sense

J Clin Epidemiol. 2020 Sep:125:179-182. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.05.024. Epub 2020 May 25.

¹ School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: matthew.page@monash.edu.
² Bruyere Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada; Campbell Collaboration, Oslo, Norway; School of Epidemiology and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa.
³ Stockholm Environment Institute, Linnégatan 87D, Stockholm, Sweden; African Centre for Evidence, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa; The SEI Centre of the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence, Stockholm, Sweden; Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Berlin, Germany.
⁴ Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada.
⁵ Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.
⁶ Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada; Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medicine, and School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.

Abstract

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Given the urgent need for credible answers to high-priority questions about the health and social impacts of COVID-19, many systematic reviewers seek to contribute their skills and expertise.
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Rather than embarking on unnecessary, duplicate reviews, we encourage the evidence synthesis community to prioritise purposeful replication of systematic reviews of evidence relevant to COVID-19.
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We explain why replication of systematic reviews is important, how to carry out a replication, and when to consider replication of reviews.