Rapid evidence assessments of research to inform social policy: taking stock and moving forward
Abstract
There is a tension between conducting comprehensive systematic reviews and completing them in time to meet policy-making deadlines. The ‘rapid evidence assessment’ has been proposed as a solution to this; offering rigorous reviews in a condensed timescale. While used frequently in healthcare, this mode of reviewing presents considerable challenges in social policy. We describe some potential problems and suggest reviewing strategies that can overcome some of them. There are situations, however, in which it may not be feasible to embark on a rapid review, and caution should be exercised when selecting this method.
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Meta-reviews, or reviews of reviews, are often employed to summarise the evidence from a field in a short space of time in order to inform policy.
“our research highlights the dangers involved in meta-reviews (or reviews of reviews) which are often employed to summarise the evidence from a field in a short space of time, in order to inform policy (Thomas, Newman, & Oliver, 2013).”
From Identifying the characteristics of effective teacher professional development: a critical review (2021) · cites this paper as Thomas, Newman, & Oliver, 2013
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 31 · Cited by 109
- Authors
- Thomas, J., Newman, M., & Oliver, S.
- Affiliations
- University of London (GB)
- Venue
- Evidence and Policy
- Publisher
- Bristol University Press
- Published
- 2013-01
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 5-27
- ISSN
- 1744-2648 (ISSN-L)
- 1744-2656
- OpenAlex
- W2032929520
- Cited by
- 109
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 8.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Evidence & Policy (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Evaluation and Performance Assessment
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Policy Implementation Science
- Keywords
- rapid evidence assessment, social policy, evidence-informed policy, review strategies
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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