Improving the quality of toxicology and environmental health systematic reviews: What journal editors can do

Paul Whaley; Bas J Blaauboer; Jan Brozek; Elaine A Cohen Hubal; Kaitlyn Hair; Sam Kacew; Thomas B Knudsen; Carol F Kwiatkowski; David T Mellor; Andrew F Olshan; Matthew J Page; Andrew A Rooney; Elizabeth G Radke; Larissa Shamseer; Katya Tsaioun; Peter Tugwell; Daniele Wikoff; Tracey J Woodruff

doi:10.14573/altex.2106111

Improving the quality of toxicology and environmental health systematic reviews: What journal editors can do

ALTEX. 2021;38(3):513-522. doi: 10.14573/altex.2106111. Epub 2021 Jun 22.

Authors

Paul Whaley^{1

2}, Bas J Blaauboer³, Jan Brozek⁴, Elaine A Cohen Hubal⁵, Kaitlyn Hair⁶, Sam Kacew⁷, Thomas B Knudsen⁸, Carol F Kwiatkowski⁹, David T Mellor¹⁰, Andrew F Olshan¹¹, Matthew J Page¹², Andrew A Rooney¹³, Elizabeth G Radke¹⁴, Larissa Shamseer¹⁵, Katya Tsaioun¹⁶, Peter Tugwell¹⁷, Daniele Wikoff¹⁸, Tracey J Woodruff¹⁹

Affiliations

¹ Evidence-based Toxicology Collaboration at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA
² Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, United Kingdom.
³ Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, div. of Toxicology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University Health Sciences Centre, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
⁵ US EPA, Office of Research and Development, Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA.
⁶ CAMARADES, University of Edinburgh, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
⁷ McLaughlin Centre for Risk Assessment, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
⁸ US EPA, Office of Research and Development, Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA.
⁹ The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, Eckert, CO, USA.
¹⁰ Center for Open Science, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
¹¹ Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
¹² School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
¹³ Division of the National Toxicology Program, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA.
¹⁴ Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, USA.
¹⁵ Knowledge Translation Program, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael's Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
¹⁶ Evidence-based Toxicology Collaboration at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Medicine and School of Epidemiology University of Ottawa, ON, Canada.
¹⁸ ToxStrategies, Inc., Asheville, NC, USA.
¹⁹ Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Abstract

Systematic reviews are fast increasing in prevalence in the toxicology and environmental health literature. However, how well these complex research projects are being conducted and reported is unclear. Since editors have an essential role in ensuring the scientific quality of manuscripts being published in their journals, a workshop was convened where editors, systematic review practitioners, and research quality control experts could discuss what editors can do to ensure the systematic reviews they publish are of sufficient scientific quality. Interventions were explored along four themes: setting standards; reviewing protocols; optimizing editorial workflows; and measuring the effectiveness of editorial interventions. In total, 58 editorial interventions were proposed. Of these, 26 were shortlisted for being potentially effective, and 5 were prioritized as short-term actions that editors could relatively easily take to improve the quality of published systematic reviews. Recent progress in improving systematic reviews is summarized, and outstanding challenges to further progress are highlighted.

Keywords: environmental health; epidemiology; research standards; systematic review; toxicology.

Publication types

Editorial

MeSH terms

Editorial Policies*
Environmental Health*
Quality Control
Workflow

Grants and funding

EPA999999/ImEPA/Intramural EPA/United States