Systematic Reviews in Public Health

This article describes the relevance of systematic reviews to public health policy and practice. Systematic reviews synthesize the evidence on a clearly formulated question. Using systematic and (usually ideally prespecified) explicit methods to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant primary studies, review authors then extract, collate, and analyze data from the included studies. Although they have had a longer history in education and medicine, their production in public health is expanding as their application for public health decision-making is identified as increasingly important. Review methods continue to evolve to meet the needs of end users in a range of public health policy, practice, and research contexts. This article also highlights the importance of appropriate framing and dissemination of review findings as well as the infrastructure required to support researchers, practitioners, and health funders (governments and nongovernment agencies) to consider and incorporate implications of review findings into decision-making processes.