Environmental health systematic reviews have long been of poor quality when comparing them to clinical health systematic reviews. The main reason for the poor quality of environmental health systematic reviews is the lack of a specific protocol. The University of California-San Francisco’s Program for Reproductive Health and the Environment has, because of the discrepancy, created a protocol specific to conducting environmental health systematic reviews. The protocols efforts would be futile without a nonbiased way to evaluate systematic reviews and therefore the protocol used. The Literature Review Appraisal Toolkit is a valuable tool created to navigate and evaluate the credibility of current published environmental health systematic reviews. The LRAT was applied to multiple published systematic reviews that focused on three different topics that PHRE was focusing on. The results of the LRAT are for each case study show the majority of published environmental health systematic reviews to be unsatisfactory and all of them not following an outlined protocol. The continual use of a tool to rate environmental health systematic reviews will be necessary just as the application of strict protocols will be necessary. The current standard for environmental health systematic reviews is very low and demanding better quality is necessary to make environmental health systematic reviews useful to the medical field and transparent for decision-making and policy development.
","abstract_html":"<p>Environmental health systematic reviews have long been of poor quality when comparing them to clinical health systematic reviews. The main reason for the poor quality of environmental health systematic reviews is the lack of a specific protocol. The University of California-San Francisco’s Program for Reproductive Health and the Environment has, because of the discrepancy, created a protocol specific to conducting environmental health systematic reviews. The protocols efforts would be futile without a nonbiased way to evaluate systematic reviews and therefore the protocol used. The Literature Review Appraisal Toolkit is a valuable tool created to navigate and evaluate the credibility of current published environmental health systematic reviews. The LRAT was applied to multiple published systematic reviews that focused on three different topics that PHRE was focusing on. The results of the LRAT are for each case study show the majority of published environmental health systematic reviews to be unsatisfactory and all of them not following an outlined protocol. The continual use of a tool to rate environmental health systematic reviews will be necessary just as the application of strict protocols will be necessary. The current standard for environmental health systematic reviews is very low and demanding better quality is necessary to make environmental health systematic reviews useful to the medical field and transparent for decision-making and policy development.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Davis, Kristen M"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Public Health (MPH)","degree_level":"Project/Capstone - Global access","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2016,"date_issued":"2016-12-16T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2016-12-16T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:43:40Z","subjects":["Environmental Public Health"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://repository.usfca.edu/capstone/412","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Davis, Kristen M"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2016-11-29T08:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Project/Capstone - Global access"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Public Health (MPH)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Environmental Public Health"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://repository.usfca.edu/capstone/412"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Environmental health systematic reviews have long been of poor quality when comparing them to clinical health systematic reviews. The main reason for the poor quality of environmental health systematic reviews is the lack of a specific protocol. The University of California-San Francisco’s Program for Reproductive Health and the Environment has, because of the discrepancy, created a protocol specific to conducting environmental health systematic reviews. The protocols efforts would be futile without a nonbiased way to evaluate systematic reviews and therefore the protocol used. The Literature Review Appraisal Toolkit is a valuable tool created to navigate and evaluate the credibility of current published environmental health systematic reviews. The LRAT was applied to multiple published systematic reviews that focused on three different topics that PHRE was focusing on. The results of the LRAT are for each case study show the majority of published environmental health systematic reviews to be unsatisfactory and all of them not following an outlined protocol. The continual use of a tool to rate environmental health systematic reviews will be necessary just as the application of strict protocols will be necessary. The current standard for environmental health systematic reviews is very low and demanding better quality is necessary to make environmental health systematic reviews useful to the medical field and transparent for decision-making and policy development.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The Application of the Literature Review Appraisal Toolkit on Environmental Health Systematic Reviews"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Davis, Kristen M"],"dc:date.available":["2016-11-29T08:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Environmental health systematic reviews have long been of poor quality when comparing them to clinical health systematic reviews. The main reason for the poor quality of environmental health systematic reviews is the lack of a specific protocol. The University of California-San Francisco’s Program for Reproductive Health and the Environment has, because of the discrepancy, created a protocol specific to conducting environmental health systematic reviews. The protocols efforts would be futile without a nonbiased way to evaluate systematic reviews and therefore the protocol used. The Literature Review Appraisal Toolkit is a valuable tool created to navigate and evaluate the credibility of current published environmental health systematic reviews. The LRAT was applied to multiple published systematic reviews that focused on three different topics that PHRE was focusing on. The results of the LRAT are for each case study show the majority of published environmental health systematic reviews to be unsatisfactory and all of them not following an outlined protocol. The continual use of a tool to rate environmental health systematic reviews will be necessary just as the application of strict protocols will be necessary. The current standard for environmental health systematic reviews is very low and demanding better quality is necessary to make environmental health systematic reviews useful to the medical field and transparent for decision-making and policy development.
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