Margaret Sampson

Objectives: Information professionals have supported medical providers, administrators and decision-makers, and guideline creators in the COVID-19 response. Searching COVID-19 literature presented new challenges, including the volume and heterogeneity of literature and the proliferation of new information sources, and exposed existing issues in metadata and publishing. An expert panel developed best practices, including recommendations, elaborations, and examples, for searching during public health emergencies. Methods: Project directors and advisors developed core elements from experience and literature. Experts, identified by affiliation with evidence synthesis groups, COVID-19 search experience, and nomination, responded to an online survey to reach consensus on core elements. Expert participants provided written responses to guiding questions. A synthesis of responses provided the foundation for focus group discussions. A writing group then drafted the best practices into a statement. Experts reviewed the statement prior to dissemination. Results: Twelve information professionals contributed to best practice recommendations on six elements: core resources, search strategies, publication types, transparency and reproducibility, collaboration, and conducting research. Underlying principles across recommendations include timeliness, openness, balance, preparedness, and responsiveness. Conclusions: The authors and experts anticipate the recommendations for searching for evidence during public health emergencies will help information specialists, librarians, evidence synthesis groups, researchers, and decision-makers respond to future public health emergencies, including but not limited to disease outbreaks. The recommendations complement existing guidance by addressing concerns specific to emergency response. The statement is intended as a living document. Future revisions should solicit input from a broader community and reflect conclusions of meta-research on COVID-19 and health emergencies.

Transgender people face numerous obstacles to accessing adequate, affordable, and appropriate sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services as outlined by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 3.7 ...

Background Musculoskeletal fitness is an excellent functional measure that is significantly related to health among youth. Objective Our objective was to identify health-related criterion-referenced cut-points for musculoskeletal fitness (MSF) among youth. Methods A systematic search of two electronic databases (MEDLINE and SPORTDiscus) was conducted in September 2020. Only peer-reviewed studies that developed health-related criterion-referenced cut-points for MSF among youth were eligible provided they included (1) youth aged 5–17 years from the general population, (2) at least one quantitative assessment of MSF (e.g., muscular strength), (3) at least one quantitative assessment of health (e.g., cardiometabolic risk), (4) a criterion for health, and (5) a quantitative analysis [e.g., receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve] of at least one health-related cut-point for MSF. A narrative synthesis was used to describe the results of included studies. Results Collectively, 13 studies that developed health-related criterion-referenced cut-points for MSF among 14,476 youth from 15 countries were included. Muscular strength demonstrated high discriminatory ability [median area under the curve (AUC) ≥ 0.71] for cardiometabolic risk/metabolic syndrome, sarcopenic obesity risk and bone health, and moderate discriminatory ability (median AUC 0.64–0.70) for asthma. Muscular power also demonstrated high discriminatory ability for bone health but only moderate discriminatory ability for cardiometabolic risk/metabolic syndrome and low discriminatory ability (median AUC 0.56–0.63) for cognition/academic performance. Both muscular endurance and flexibility demonstrated low discriminatory ability for musculoskeletal pain. Health-related cut-points for MSF that demonstrated significant discriminatory ability were generally higher for boys than for girls (for muscular strength and power) and generally increased with age for muscular strength and power but remained stable for flexibility. Conclusions Data remain insufficient to establish universal health-related cut-points for MSF among youth. Despite variations in the health-related discriminatory ability of different MSF tests, handgrip strength and standing broad jump emerged as the two tests with the highest discriminatory ability. More research, using standardized testing protocols and health-risk definitions, is required to better triangulate universal health-related cut-points for MSF among youth. PROSPERO registration number CRD42020207458.

Introduction: Solutions like crowd screening and machine learning can assist systematic reviewers with heavy screening burdens but require training sets containing a mix of eligible and ineligible studies. This study explores using PubMed's Best Match algorithm to create small training sets containing at least five relevant studies. Methods: Six systematic reviews were examined retrospectively. MEDLINE searches were converted and run in PubMed. The ranking of included studies was studied under both Best Match and Most Recent sort conditions. Results: Retrieval sizes for the systematic reviews ranged from 151 to 5,406 records and the numbers of relevant records ranged from 8 to 763. The median ranking of relevant records was higher in Best Match for all six reviews, when compared with Most Recent sort. Best Match placed a total of thirty relevant records in the first fifty, at least one for each systematic review. Most Recent sorting placed only ten relevant records in the first fifty. Best Match sorting outperformed Most Recent in all cases and placed five or more relevant records in the first fifty in three of six cases. Discussion: Using a predetermined set size such as fifty may not provide enough true positives for an effective systematic review training set. However, screening PubMed records ranked by Best Match and continuing until the desired number of true positives are identified is efficient and effective. Conclusions: The Best Match sort in PubMed improves the ranking and increases the proportion of relevant records in the first fifty records relative to sorting by recency.

An investigation into placental pathology in pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 has not yet been examined extensively; however, this knowledge would be beneficial in understanding the potential for vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy, via the placenta. Currently, results are conflicting, with some evidence suggesting rare placental infection. Conversely, compared to controls, one study determined that third trimester placentas were significantly more likely to show one feature of maternal vascular malperfusion (MVM), and intervillous thrombi, fetal vascular malperfusion or fetal vascular thrombosis, and increased perivillous fibrin deposition and intervillositis. In contrast, another study reported no significant differences in individual or group gross or microscopic pathological features. As well, no ACE2 expression has yet been detected in villous stroma, Hofbauer cells, or endothelial cells, and TMPRSS2 expression is only weakly present in villous endothelium. In light of the inconclusive evidence, the burden of placental pathologies potentially related to SARS-CoV-2 in pregnant women and their neonates or infants, remains at the forefront of medical attention, particularly among pathologists, and obstetricians worldwide. This protocol describes the steps of our systematic review, which aims to investigate differences in placental pathologies in pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 versus pregnant women without the virus. Our study will identify case series, case-control and cohort studies of asymptomatic and symptomatic pregnant women, who test positive for SARS-CoV-2 during any stage of their pregnancy, as validated by laboratory confirmed positive antibody testing or using real-time reverse-transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR). Studies examining pregnant women who test positive during the first, second or third trimester, are eligible. Only articles written in English or French will be included. Literature reviews, systematic reviews, editorials, letters to the editor, conference abstracts, and commentaries will be excluded. The following databases will be searched: MEDLINE including Epub Ahead of Print, In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations (1946- November 17, 2020) and Embase (1980- November 17, 2020). Two specialized COVID-19 resources will also be searched November 18, 2020; Cochrane Covid-19 study register which indexes according to study design, and the WHO Covid-19 Collection which includes material from numerous sources including preprint servers. Primary outcomes of interest are: retroplacental hematoma, diffuse parenchymal consolidation, maternal vascular malperfusion, fetal vascular malperfusion, and other diseases of the placenta as detailed in this protocol. Observational studies will be assessed using the Ottawa-Newcastle scale. Data will be aggregated or synthesized at the level of individual participants. Tables will be used to summarize the general characteristics of the studies included. Depending on the data and the level of variation between studies, a meta-analysis will be used to synthesize data. Count and dichotomous data will be expressed as odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals, while continuous data will be expressed as a mean or standardized mean difference with 95% confidence intervals. Statistical heterogeneity of the included studies will be assessed using the I-squared test with 95% confidence intervals, and publication bias will be determined using a funnel plot and Egger’s test when possible (>10 included studies). This review will ultimately aid in informing pathologists, obstetricians, and gynecologists when managing and treating pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2. If no evidence of vertical transmission or changes to placenta can be elucidated, then this work can inform future research investigating alternate routes of SARS-CoV-2 transmission.