ReviewCochrane evidence synthesis and methods2024
The effects of public health and social measures (PHSM) implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic: An overview of systematic reviews.
Review in Cochrane evidence synthesis and methods, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Effectiveness of Contact Tracing to Reduce Transmission of Infectious Diseases During Epidemic or Pandemic Response: Rapid Systematic Review.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2026Pooled it
- Article
- Rebuilding trust in public health: Beyond polarization.Epidemiology and infection · 2026Article
- Public health authorities in Germany during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic - a constructive-critical reflection.GMS hygiene and infection control · 2026Article
- Community engagement in mass drug administration participatory interventions: A scoping review.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Article
- WHO'Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Introduction: To systematically review the effectiveness and unintended health and socioeconomic consequences of public health and social measures (PHSM) aimed at reducing the scale and risk of transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods: This review followed guidance about overviews of reviews in the Results: A total of 94 reviews were included, of which eight (9%) had "moderate" to "high" confidence ratings on the AMSTAR 2. Of 16 reviews (17%) reporting applying the GRADE framework, none found high certainty evidence for any of our outcomes of interest. Across the 94 reviews, the most frequently examined PHSM were personal protection ( Conclusion: We found predominantly low- to very low-certainty evidence regarding the effectiveness and unintended consequences of PHSM in controlling the risk and scale of COVID-19 transmission. There is a need to improve the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews.
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.