Across disciplines, systematic reviews are used commonly to inform policy and practice. This course is designed for researchers, clinicians, and others who want to conduct systematic reviews or to be more informed users of systematic reviews.

In this course, students will learn to frame an answerable research question and to write a protocol for a review. Students will learn to develop inclusion and exclusion criteria, conduct an electronic search for studies, screen studies for inclusion, collect data, and plan for synthesizing results using meta-analysis and other approaches. The course will focus on systematic reviews of interventions (e.g., behavioral and medical) but will also introduce students to related review methods (e.g., scoping reviews, overviews of reviews) and topics (e.g., diagnostic tests).

Students who wish to complete a systematic review, or to better understand systematic review results, are encouraged to register for “Systematic Reviews Part 2: Completing a review” to be held 2/12/2025, 10am-4pm US Eastern. Separate registration is required for Part 2.