SynthesisEuropean journal of epidemiology2022
The methodologies to assess the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions during COVID-19: a systematic review.
Synthesis in European journal of epidemiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 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
26 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Global research trends of home pharmaceutical care: a bibliometric analysis via CiteSpace.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 transmission: rapid review of evidence from Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, and China.Frontiers in public health · 2024Pooled it
- A modeling study on the critical sensitivity of epidemic peaks and final size to marginal changes in non-pharmaceutical intervention efficacy.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Synthesis challenges in complex evidence: A critical analysis of systematic reviews of face mask efficacy.Research synthesis methods · 2026Article
- Uncertainty and inconsistency of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical intervention effects with multiple competitive statistical models.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Review
- Identifying indicators of "success" in managing the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe: insights from an interdisciplinary expert consultation.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2025Article
- Improving epidemiological projections for infectious diseases in Ghana: addressing methodological challenges.Global health research and policy · 2025Article
- Estimating the causal impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 spread in seven EU countries via machine learning.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Phylogeographic evaluation of the effectiveness of Canadian travel restrictions in reducing SARS-CoV-2 variant importations and burden.Virus evolution · 2025Article
- The Impact of Public Health and Social Measures (PHSMs) on SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in the WHO European Region (2020-2022).Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2024Article
- Evaluating the direct effect of vaccination and non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.Communications medicine · 2024Article
- Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 incidence and deaths: cross-national natural experiment in 32 European countries.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Modelling COVID-19 transmission dynamics in Laos under non-pharmaceutical interventions, vaccination, and replacement of SARS-CoV-2 variants.BMC global and public health · 2024Article
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce COVID-19 transmission in the UK: a rapid mapping review and interactive evidence gap map.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2024Review
- Generative Bayesian modeling to nowcast the effective reproduction number from line list data with missing symptom onset dates.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Influence of Seasonality and Public-Health Interventions on the COVID-19 Pandemic in Northern Europe.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Revisiting the complex time-varying effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 transmission in the United States.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Effects of public-health measures for zeroing out different SARS-CoV-2 variants.Nature communications · 2023Article
- estimateR: an R package to estimate and monitor the effective reproductive number.BMC bioinformatics · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as school closures and stay-at-home orders, have been implemented around the world to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Their effectiveness in improving health-related outcomes has been the subject of numerous empirical studies. However, these studies show fairly large variation among methodologies in use, reflecting the absence of an established methodological framework. On the one hand, variation in methodologies may be desirable to assess the robustness of results; on the other hand, a lack of common standards can impede comparability among studies. To establish a comprehensive overview over the methodologies in use, we conducted a systematic review of studies assessing the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions between January 1, 2020 and January 12, 2021 (n = 248). We identified substantial variation in methodologies with respect to study setting, outcome, intervention, methodological approach, and effectiveness assessment. On this basis, we point to shortcomings of existing studies and make recommendations for the design of future studies.
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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.