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Best Practice for Literature Searching

For the sciences of food and health

Useful resources

There are few tools for food science topics, and much is borrowed from health/medical research, but some of these tools may be useful to you in improving your search skills, assessing quality of evidence, and reporting your research methodology and results. If you wish to explore some other resources, the following list is aimed as a guide only. Please let us know if you wish to add to it.

Additional publications consulted

  1. Wood H, O’Connor A, Sargeant J, Glanville J. Information retrieval for systematic reviews in food and feed topics: A narrative review. Res Synth Methods. 2018;9(4):527-539. doi:.
  2. Deeks J, Frampton G, Glanville J, et al. Application of systematic review methodology to food and feed safety assessments to support decision making. EFSA J. 2010;8(6). https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/j.efsa.2010.1637.
  3. Sargeant JM, Rajic A, Read S, Ohlsson A. The process of systematic review and its application in agri-food public-health. Prev Vet Med. 2006;75(3-4):141-151. doi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2006.03.002.
  4. Glanville J, Wood H, Arber M, Varley D, Frampton G, Brazier H. Technical Manual for Performing Electronic Literature Searches in Food and Feed Safety. www.efsa.europa.eu/publications. Accessed March 12, 2019.
  5. O’Connor AM, Anderson KM, Goodell CK, Sargeant JM. Conducting systematic reviews of intervention questions I: Writing the review protocol, formulating the question and searching the literature. Zoonoses Public Health. 2014;61 Suppl 1:28-38. doi:10.1111/zph.12125.
  6. Glanville J, Varley D, Brazier H, Arber M, Wood H, Dooley G. Inventory of Sources of Scientific Evidence Relevant to EFSA’s Risk Assessments and Information Sessions on Literature Searching Techniques (CFT/EFSA/SAS/2011/03 Inventory Report). EFSA Support Publ. 2014;11(6). doi:10.2903/sp.efsa.2014.EN-593.
  7. Sampson M, McGowan J, Cogo E, Grimshaw J, Moher D, Lefebvre C. An evidence-based practice guideline for the peer review of electronic search strategies. J Clin Epidemiol. 2009;62(9):944-952. doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2008.10.012.
  8. EFSA. Technical Report: Tools for Critically Appraising Different Study Designs, Systematic Review and Literature Searches.; 2015. doi:EFSA-Q-2014-00907.