Open AccessA rapid response to the COVID-19 outbreak
Author(s) -
Ciara Keenan,
Chris Noone,
Karen McConnell,
Samantha Cheng
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of the european association for health information and libraries
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2392-8131
pISSN - 1841-0715
DOI - 10.32384/jeahil17464
Subject(s) - globe , pandemic , covid-19 , public relations , work (physics) , china , public health , political science , evidence based practice , psychology , outbreak , medicine , alternative medicine , engineering , nursing , law , infectious disease (medical specialty) , mechanical engineering , disease , pathology , virology , neuroscience
Early in the pandemic, as scientific reports and preliminary research on both clinical and public health aspectsof COVID-19 were rapidly generated, we recognised the need for a dynamic, interactive tool that could captureand collate emerging evidence sources to inform research and decision-making efforts. In particular, we observed that numerous similar research efforts across the globe were happening in parallel - prompting an urgent need to connect research teams with each other and maximize research efficiency. Our colleagues in China provided daily translations of emerging evidence to aid networking between research groups working across the world. Here we describe how the meta-evidence project met daily and ongoing challenges and what was learned as a result. We describe the benefit of finding ways to instead work with better resourced teams and promote collective and open efforts to synthesise the evidence, which in the end, outweighed the considerable costs.