3: Why review health research?
Health research, and its associated publications, form a valuable resource for people working in the health sciences. Reviews of the research literature are commonly conducted as a way to identify and summarise relevant research to inform healthcare decisions and guide policy development.
High-quality reviews clearly describe what the review authors have done and justify decisions in the conduct of the review – for example, why a search timeframe was limited or why particular studies or populations are included.
An important aspect of the scientific method is the ability to replicate. For reviews this means that the methods used should be clearly documented. This ensures transparency and allows readers to judge the applicability of a review to their needs. This makes documenting the steps followed in a review an important aspect of the review process. Learning how to write a review clearly can also improve its quality and help with understanding why reviews are useful.
There are many reasons for conducting reviews of the health research literature and many ways that reviews can be done, although the skills used in different types of reviews can be similar. Most health reviews aim to:
- summarise relevant research evidence to guide health decisions
- identify challenges and solutions for policy development
- gain understanding of a health topic or problem, including possible implications or potential impacts
- gain understanding of research that has already been done. This includes assessing methodological approaches, potential gaps and weaknesses to generate ideas for future studies.
You can build your knowledge of reviews by reading published reviews with a critical eye. This will develop your understanding of the wide range of approaches that can be taken and how reviews can be made more useful for those wanting to apply the insights that this work can generate.
