ReviewSAGE open medicine2021
Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions related to social distancing on respiratory viral infectious disease outcomes: A rapid evidence-based review and meta-analysis.
Review in SAGE open medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 3 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
23 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions as implemented in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: a rapid review.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Pooled it
- The methodologies to assess the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions during COVID-19: a systematic review.European journal of epidemiology · 2022Pooled it
- Effectiveness of public health measures in reducing the incidence of covid-19, SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and covid-19 mortality: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2021Pooled it
- An approach to assess the impact of measures mitigating burden associated with COVID-19 in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia).Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Physicians' perspectives on the perceived increase in respiratory infections post-COVID-19 in Pakistan: a qualitative study.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Inequality in life expectancy losses by education in Finland during COVID-19 pandemic.International journal for equity in health · 2026Article
- Difficulties in adherence to social distancing and quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons from a longitudinal study comparing migrants and non-migrants in a city in Norway.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Decomposing life expectancy changes in Spain in the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic periods.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Risk and resilience factors associated with the progression of influenza to severe disease outcomes: umbrella review protocol.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Acute Ischemic Stroke Treatment in Germany (2015-2023): Nationwide Trends in Thrombolysis and Thrombectomy by Age and Sex.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Patients with influenza admitted to a tertiary-care hospital in Riyadh between 2018 and 2022: characteristics, outcomes and factors associated with ICU admission and mortality.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2024Article
- Cause-specific excess mortality in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020-2022: a study using nationwide population data.European journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Changes in Infectious Disease-Specific Health Literacy in the Post-COVID-19 Pandemic Period: Two-Round Cross-Sectional Survey Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2024Article
- 'We are in for a culture change': continuing professional development leaders' perspectives on COVID-19, burn-out and structural inequities.BMJ leader · 2024Article
- Incidences for Fractures 2017-2021: What Do We Learn from the COVID-19 Pandemic?Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- The COVID-19 Pandemic Enhanced the Decade-Long Trend of the Decreasing Utilization of Antibiotics.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Multiple Concurrent Causal Relationships and Multiple Governance Pathways for Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention Policies in Pandemics: A Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis Based on 102 Countries and Regions.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Impacts of public health and social measures on COVID-19 in Europe: a review and modified Delphi technique.Frontiers in public health · 2023Review
- Investigation of the prevalence of non-COVID-19 infectious diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic.Public health · 2022Article
- Fewer non-COVID-19 respiratory tract infections and gastrointestinal infections during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of medical virology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesNon-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. quarantine and isolation) are used to mitigate and control viral infectious disease, but their effectiveness has not been well studied. For COVID-19, disease control efforts will rely on non-pharmaceutical interventions until pharmaceutical interventions become widely available, while non-pharmaceutical interventions will be of continued importance thereafter.
methodsThis rapid evidence-based review provides both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the effectiveness of social distancing non-pharmaceutical interventions on disease outcomes. Literature was retrieved from MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and pre-print databases (BioRxiv.org, MedRxiv.org, and Wellcome Open Research).
resultsTwenty-eight studies met inclusion criteria (
conclusionImplementation of multiple non-pharmaceutical interventions at key decision points for public health could effectively facilitate disease mitigation and suppression until pharmaceutical interventions become available. Dynamics around
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.