Developing WHO rapid advice guidelines in the setting of a public health emergency
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OBJECTIVES: We describe newly established guidance for guideline developers at the World Health Organization (WHO) on the process and procedures for developing a rapid advice guideline in the context of a public health emergency (e.g., the 2014 Ebola epidemic). STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: We based our approach on established rapid review methods, which were incorporated into existing WHO guideline development processes. Guidance was further informed by in-depth discussions of issues related to rapid guideline development with WHO staff (n = 6), who oversee the Organization's response to emergencies. RESULTS: We discuss criteria for considering if a rapid advice guideline is appropriate and feasible and outline the roles of various contributors across the phases of development. Further, we describe the methods and steps involved in performing rapid reviews, which are more fluid and iterative than for a standard guideline process. In general, rapid advice guidelines involve a shorter timeline, narrower scope, and the use of abbreviated methods for the evidence review. CONCLUSION: Important differences exist between developing a standard guideline and a rapid advice guideline. However, the core principles for WHO guidelines apply to rapid advice guidelines including minimizing bias, applying transparent processes and the use of explicit methods.
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To the authors' knowledge, this is the first guidance to provide clear, actionable recommendations and minimum standards based on up-to-date empirical evidence evaluating rapid review methods.
“to our knowledge, this is the first that provides clear, actionable recommendations and minimum standards based on up to date empirical evidence evaluating RR methods.”
From Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group offers evidence-informed guidance to conduct rapid reviews (2021) · cites this paper as [16]
Other rapid review guides address health policy and systems research, public health, or WHO guideline development during public health emergencies.
“Other RR guides focus on health policy and systems research, public health, or WHO guideline development in the face of public health emergencies [16,20,21].”
From Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group offers evidence-informed guidance to conduct rapid reviews (2021) · cites this paper as [16]
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- Authors
- Garritty, C. M., Norris, S. L., & Moher, D.
- Affiliations
- Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (CA)
- World Health Organization (CH)
- University of Ottawa (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Garritty, Chantelle M.
- Venue
- Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-02
- Volume
- 82
- Pages
- 47-60
- ISSN
- 0895-4356 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7125868
- OpenAlex
- W2513984232
- Cited by
- 56
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 2.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Clinical Epidemiology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- World Health Organization
- Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Clinical practice guidelines implementation
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Emergency Medical Services › Disaster Response and Management
- Keywords
- guideline development, public health emergencies, World Health Organization, rapid review, Ebola epidemic, evidence review, transparency, bias mitigation
- MeSH terms
- Emergencies, Humans, Public Health, World Health Organization, Guidelines as Topic, Disease Management
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