ArticleJournal of evaluation in clinical practice2020
Face coverings for the public: Laying straw men to rest.
Article in Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 2 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
24 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effect of face-covering use on adherence to other COVID-19 protective behaviours: A systematic review.PloS one · 2024Pooled it
- Downsides of face masks and possible mitigation strategies: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ open · 2021Pooled it
- Understanding and addressing the obstacles to a trial of face masks in schools: a mixed-methods feasibility study.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2026Article
- Science for Pandemic Preparedness: A Precautionary Framework.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2025Article
- Towards prevention of new COVID-19 infections in institutions of higher education: factors influencing compliance with mask-wearing among public university students in Ghana.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Downing the Master's Tools? New Research Strategies to Address Social Determinants of Health Inequalities.International journal of social determinants of health and health services · 2023Article
- Communicating and using systematic reviews-Learning from other disciplines.Campbell systematic reviews · 2022Article
- Translating COVID-19: From Contagion to Containment.The Journal of medical humanities · 2022Article
- What should be the baseline when calculating excess mortality? New approaches suggest that we have underestimated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and previous winter peaks.SSM - population health · 2022Article
- Challenges for modelling interventions for future pandemics.Epidemics · 2022Article
- Article
- Compliance with wearing facemasks by university teaching staff during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic: a cross sectional study.Discover social science and health · 2022Article
- Epistemologies of evidence-based medicine: a plea for corpus-based conceptual research in the medical humanities.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2021Article
- COVID-19 false dichotomies and a comprehensive review of the evidence regarding public health, COVID-19 symptomatology, SARS-CoV-2 transmission, mask wearing, and reinfection.BMC infectious diseases · 2021Review
- An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Review
- Just follow the science: A government response to a pandemic.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2020Article
- Making sense of the evidence in population health intervention research: building a dry stone wall.BMJ global health · 2020Article
- Exercising and face masks: An important hypothesis buried in a selective review.Medical hypotheses · 2020Article
- Universal masking during COVID-19 pandemic: Can textile engineering help public health? Narrative review of the evidence.Preventive medicine · 2020Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Background This article responds to one by Graham Martin and colleagues, who offered a critique of my previous publications on face coverings for the lay public in the Covid-19 pandemic. Their paper reflects criticisms that have been made of face coverings policies more generally. Method Narrative rebuttal. Results I address charges that my coauthors and I had misapplied the precautionary principle; drawn conclusions that were not supported by empirical research; and failed to take account of potential harms But before that, I remind my critics that the evidence on face coverings goes beyond the contested trials and observational studies they place centre stage. I set out some key findings from basic science, epidemiology, mathematical modelling, case studies, and natural experiments, and use this rich and diverse body of evidence as the backdrop for my rebuttal of their narrowly framed objections. I challenge my critics' apparent assumption that a particular kind of systematic review should be valorised over narrative and real-world evidence, since stories are crucial to both our scientific understanding and our moral imagination. Conclusion I conclude by thanking my academic adversaries for the intellectual sparring match, but exhort them to remember our professional accountability to a society in crisis. It is time to lay straw men to rest and embrace the full range of evidence in the context of the perilous threat the world is now facing.
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What OpenQuestion 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 OpenQuestion graph.