Interventions for the prevention of childhood allergies, and for promoting allergy-prevention related and COVID-19 related health literacy: living systematic reviews (Living Systematic Review)

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Non-reproducible and conflicting health research findings entail the risk that health professionals (HPs) and the public are left confused. Evidence synthesis addresses this issue, but systematic reviews (SRs) of evidence (and consequently guidelines) go out of date quickly posing a serious risk of inaccuracy, particularly in dynamic fields such as early childhood allergy prevention (ECAP) and interventions to enhance health literacy (HL). There are presumably gaps between the best available evidence, and the practice of ECAP. Living systematic reviews (LSRs) offer an emerging chance to narrow the evidence-practice gap by keeping SRs based on evidence from randomised controlled trials continuously up to date. Traditional evidence synthesis methods, which we have applied to environmental interventions, complementary feeding (CF) and COVID-19-related HL in the general population and among HPs, provide only limited analytical possibilities. Individual Participant Data (IPD) meta-analysis (MA) has evolved as the gold standard for investigating questions beyond the average causal effect such as exploring heterogeneity or the impact of publication biases. However, a major challenge remains translating evidence in practice, which is hindered by barriers in accessing and comprehending scientific findings among HPs and parents. To enhance accessibility and usability, an evidence ecosystem is required that integrates evidence continuously and provides a user-friendly, comprehensive and reusable repository. WP2 applies the evidence synthesis paradigm to ECAP and HL. Objectives include (1) to update SRs published during the first funding phase and to expand the evidence ecosystem assisted by Epistemonikos Foundation for all routes of interventions, (2) to conduct IPD MAs for CF, pro-, pre- and synbiotica supplementation and hydrolysed formula, (3) to continue the LSR on interventions to improve COVID-19 HL, (4) to establish an LSR on ECAP-HL, (5) to involve principal target groups in creating plain language summaries through participatory research. A special focus will be on the detection of publication bias, particularly in areas with heavy industry influence. Data sharing agreements for IPD MAs will be arranged in year 1, with the analyses continuing in year 2 and concluding in year 3. The results will be disseminated through an interactive website featuring various LSRs and plain language summaries. WP2 will provide a comprehensive and living evidence ecosystem for ECAP, ECAP-HL and COVID-19-HL. It has a strong connection to WP1-Conflict of Interest which will compare our findings with the guidelines identified in the first funding phase. It is also linked to WP3-Health Professionals, WP 5-User Needs and WP7-Planetary Health, which aim to develop and pilot implement educational and system-level interventions to improve ECAP knowledge and HL.