Systematic Reviews for Complex Interventions in Medicine and Public Health

The 4-day in-person HTADS course "Systematic Reviews for Complex Interventions in Medicine and Public Health" is designed to provide an introduction to advanced methods for conducting systematic reviews and evidence synthesis, with a particular focus on complex public health and medical interventions. A complex intervention is typically characterized by multiple interacting components, variability in implementation and context, and the targeting of multiple outcomes or levels of influence. Most real-world public health interventions and health-related policies are likely to be complex. Examples include tobacco control policies, mask mandates, sugar taxes, and rehabilitation programs after stroke. These interventions often act as “events in systems,” where their effects are strongly shaped by the context in which they are implemented and the systems they interact with.

Topics covered in the course include the nature of complexity in interventions and the resulting challenges for conducting evidence syntheses, the use of logic models, challenges in searching for evidence, an overview of non-randomized studies of intervention effects, risk of bias assessment using ROBINS-I and ROB 2, causal inference issues, as well as approaches to evidence synthesis both with and without meta-analysis. The course will be interactive and practical, combining lectures, group discussions, exercises, and hands-on tutorials.