ReviewPhysics reports2021
Non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A review.
Review in Physics reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 241 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
241 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 509 citations in OpenAlex.
- A scoping review of COVID-19 modelling studies in Belgium 2020-2024: incorporation of behaviour and lessons learned.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions in containing COVID-19 pandemic after the roll-out of coronavirus vaccines: a systematic review.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- Changes in Sleep Duration and Sleep Timing in the General Population from before to during the First COVID-19 Lockdown: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Pooled it
- Changes in sleep quality and sleep disturbances in the general population from before to during the COVID-19 lockdown: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- The methodologies to assess the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions during COVID-19: a systematic review.European journal of epidemiology · 2022Pooled it
- 'This Is Not Life': Psychosocial Experiences of Hungarian Secondary School Students During COVID-19 School Closures: A Retrospective Qualitative Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Optimal strategies for fair vaccine allocation: integrating non-pharmaceutical interventions, regional quarantine, and social challenges in epidemic control.Theory in biosciences = Theorie in den Biowissenschaften · 2026Article
- Dissociative symptoms during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic situation in mental health patients.Borderline personality disorder and emotion dysregulation · 2026Article
- Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2: a resource-efficient wastewater-based workflow.Molecular biology reports · 2026Article
- Implications for distancing measures on in-person school and work attendance from Italian post-pandemic social contact data.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Partnership Quality and Mental Health Among Older Adults in England Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2026Article
- Understanding how mobility and spatial disparities shape COVID-19 transmission under rotational and localized lockdowns.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Rapid Epidemiological Data Collection on Social Media for COVID-19: Comparative Study Between Online Surveys and Conventional Cohorts.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Observational
- Mental health in adults aged 50+ since the COVID-19 pandemic: Are we (all) back to 'normal'? evidence from England.Journal of affective disorders reports · 2026Article
- Ensemble forecasts of COVID-19 activity to support Australia's pandemic response: 2020-22.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Mortality risk during the COVID-19 pandemic is shaped by human development.BMC global and public health · 2026Article
- Integrating machine learning techniques for critical node identification in complex networks.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Assessing the relationships between capability, opportunity, and motivation in influencing self-isolation behaviour during pandemics.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Inferring mobility reductions from COVID-19 disease spread along the urban-rural gradient.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
181 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Infectious diseases and human behavior are intertwined. On one side, our movements and interactions are the engines of transmission. On the other, the unfolding of viruses might induce changes to our daily activities. While intuitive, our understanding of such feedback loop is still limited. Before COVID-19 the literature on the subject was mainly theoretical and largely missed validation. The main issue was the lack of empirical data capturing behavioral change induced by diseases. Things have dramatically changed in 2020. Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been the key weapon against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and affected virtually any societal process. Travel bans, events cancellation, social distancing, curfews, and lockdowns have become unfortunately very familiar. The scale of the emergency, the ease of survey as well as crowdsourcing deployment guaranteed by the latest technology, several Data for Good programs developed by tech giants, major mobile phone providers, and other companies have allowed unprecedented access to data describing behavioral changes induced by the pandemic. Here, I review some of the vast literature written on the subject of NPIs during the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, I analyze 348 articles written by more than 2518 authors in the first 12 months of the emergency. While the large majority of the sample was obtained by querying PubMed, it includes also a hand-curated list. Considering the focus, and methodology I have classified the sample into seven main categories: epidemic models, surveys, comments/perspectives, papers aiming to quantify the effects of NPIs, reviews, articles using data proxies to measure NPIs, and publicly available datasets describing NPIs. I summarize the methodology, data used, findings of the articles in each category and provide an outlook highlighting future challenges as well as opportunities.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.