Systematic review to quantify the impacts of heat on health, and to assess the effectiveness of interventions to reduce these impacts

The review begins with a literature search, identifying eligible articles (by screening of titles, abstract and full text); then with the extraction of data from full text eligible articles (a generic set of data from all articles and specialised set of data from articles on specific review questions); and concludes with analysis of extracted data and publication of findings (Table 1). The review has 7 phases (see Table 1), namely: Stage 1. Pilot search and study tools, and finalise protocol Stage 2. Perform search, and upload titles and abstracts onto online software Stage 3. Screen titles and abstracts for eligibility Stage 4. Upload full text of screen positive articles onto online software Stage 5. Screen full text articles and extract generic data from eligible publications, including assessments of study quality Stage 6. Develop specific PICO questions (Populations, Interventions, Comparators and Outcomes) and protocols for these. Extract additional data on these PICO questions, using a subset of the publications Stage 7. Analysis of data and manuscript writing Stages 3, 5 and 6 are done in duplicate using online software, independently by two reviewers. The review process follows the PRISMA flow chart and PRISMA statement (Appendix 1 and http://prisma-statement.org/). PRISMA consists of a checklist of items required for a high-quality systematic review, which we will adhere to. The protocol will be registered with PROSPERO (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero). The software compares the coding of the two reviewers and notes any discrepancies, which can be resolved through discussion between the two reviewers, or by a third party. Appendix 2 describes the review software and related procedures. The roles of the review team and criteria for authorship are described in Appendix 4.