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Background Grey literature includes a range of documents not controlled by commercial publishing organisations. This means that grey literature can be difficult to search and retrieve for evidence synthesis. Much knowledge and evidence in public health, and other fields, accumulates from innovation in practice. This knowledge may not even be of sufficient formality to meet the definition of grey literature. We term this knowledge ‘grey information’. Grey information may be even harder to search for and retrieve than grey literature. Methods On three previous occasions, we have attempted to systematically search for and synthesise public health grey literature and information—both to summarise the extent and nature of particular classes of interventions and to synthesise results of evaluations. Here, we briefly describe these three ‘case studies’ but focus on our post hoc critical reflections on searching for and synthesising grey literature and information garnered from our experiences of these case studies. We believe these reflections will be useful to future researchers working in this area. Results Issues discussed include search methods, searching efficiency, replicability of searches, data management, data extraction, assessing study ‘quality’, data synthesis, time and resources, and differentiating evidence synthesis from primary research. Conclusions Information on applied public health research questions relating to the nature and range of public health interventions, as well as many evaluations of these interventions, may be predominantly, or only, held in grey literature and grey information. Evidence syntheses on these topics need, therefore, to embrace grey literature and information. Many typical systematic review methods for searching, appraising, managing, and synthesising the evidence base can be adapted for use with grey literature and information. Evidence synthesisers should carefully consider the opportunities and problems offered by including grey literature and information. Enhanced incentives for accurate recording and further methodological developments in retrieval will facilitate future syntheses of grey literature and information.

Blockchain technology has been changing the nature of several businesses, from supply chain management to electronic record management systems and copyright management to healthcare applications. It provides a resilient and secure platform for modifications due to its distributed and shared nature and cryptographic functions. Each new technology, however, comes with its challenges alongside its opportunities. Previously, we performed a systematic literature review (SLR) to explore how blockchain technology potentially benefits health domain applications. The previous SLR included 27 formal literature papers from 2016 to 2020. Noticing that blockchain technology is rapidly growing, we extended the previous SLR with a multivocal literature review (MLR) approach to present the state of the art in this study. We focused on understanding to what degree blockchain could answer the challenges inherited in the health domain and whether blockchain technology may bring new challenges to health applications. The MLR consists of 78 sources of formal literature and 23 sources of gray literature from 2016 to 2021. As a result of this study, we specified 17 health domain challenges that can be categorized into four groups: (i) meeting regulatory requirements and public health surveillance, (ii) ensuring security and privacy, (iii) ensuring interoperability, and (iv) preventing waste of resources. The analysis shows that blockchain makes significant contributions to the solutions of these challenges. However, 10 new pitfalls come with adopting the technology in the health domain: the inability to delete sensitive data once it is added to a chain, limited ability to keep large-scale data in a blockchain, and performance issues. The data we extracted during the MLR is available in a publicly accessible online repository.

The further rise of electronic publishing has come to change the scale and diversity of grey literature facing librarians and other information practitioners. This compiled work brings together research and authorship over the past decade dealing with both the supply and demand sides of grey literature. While this book is written with students and instructors of Colleges and Schools of Library and Information Science in mind, it likewise serves as a reader for information professionals working in any and all like knowledge-based communities.

Given the growing influence of non-academic organizations in the policy sphere, it is important to investigate the evidence both produced by and relied on by these organizations. Using citation analysis, a methodology primarily used in academic literature, we investigated the evidence base supporting the grey literature published by leading global management consulting firms (GMCFs) and international organizations (IOs). With the topic of the skills needed for the future of work as a case study, we collected 234 reports published by influential GMCFs and IOs over twenty years. By extracting references from the bibliographies of these reports we: 1) analyzed referencing patterns by measuring citation counts, institutional self-referencing and utilization of scholarly sources; 2) compared reference patterns across GMCFs and IOs; and 3) described the most influential sources. Overall, both GMCFs and IOs showed increasing reliance on grey literature, demonstrated high levels of self-referencing, and had considerable variation in the number of sources referred to. Across type of publishing organization, we found that IOs had better referencing practices than GMCFs. Our findings call into question the evidence-base behind the reports published by these policy actors. We emphasize the need to rely on strong academic literature to inform policy decisions around the future of work.

The need to assess the effectiveness and value of interventions involving digital health and health and welfare technologies is becoming increasingly important due to the rapidly growing development of these technologies and their areas of application. Systematic reviews of scientific literature are a mainstay of such assessment, but publications outside the realm of traditional scientific bibliographic databases-known as gray literature-are often not included. This is a disadvantage, particularly apparent in the health and welfare technology (HWT) domain. The aim of this article is to investigate the significance of gray literature in digital health and HWT when reviewing literature. As an example, the impact of including gray literature to the result of two systematic reviews in HWT is examined. In this paper, we identify, discuss, and suggest methods for including gray literature sources when evaluating effectiveness and appropriateness for different review types related to HWT. The analysis also includes established sources, search strategies, documentation, and reporting of searches, as well as bias and credibility assessment. The differences in comparison to scientific bibliographic databases are elucidated. We describe the results, challenges, and benefits of including gray literature in 2 examples of systematic reviews of HWT. In the 2 systematic reviews described in this paper, most included studies came from context-specific gray literature sources. Gray literature contributed to the overall result of the reviews and corresponded well with the reviews' aims. The assessed risk of bias of the included studies derived from gray literature was similar to the included studies from other types of sources. However, because of less standardized publication formats, assessing and extracting data from gray literature studies were more time-consuming and compiling statistical results was not possible. The search process for gray literature required more time and the reproducibility of gray literature searches were less certain due to more unstable publication platforms. Gray literature is particularly relevant for digital health and HWT but searches need to be conducted systematically and reported transparently. This way gray literature can broaden the range of studies, highlight context specificity, and decrease the publication bias of reviews of effectiveness of HWT. Thus, researchers conducting systematic reviews related to HWT should consider including gray literature based on a systematic approach.

Background There is a need to scale-up effective physical activity (PA) programmes for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), where the uptake of PA interventions is low. Identifying real-life workplace practices in PA could contribute to a better understanding of what PA programmes might be most grounded in the ‘real world’. However, there is a scarcity of evidence showing what gets done. This study aimed to identify, describe and comprehensively summarize the real-life implementations of workplace PA initiatives, particularly in Europe, as a prior step to disseminating future feasible PA practices for SMEs. Methods A scoping review of grey literature included a systematic search in the Google advanced search platform that permuted a combination of key concepts (PA, workplace, interventions/programmes), internet domains, and search operators in six different languages (Catalan, Finnish, French, Dutch, English and Spanish) between 2015 and November 2020. The analysis process was iterative, and multiple methods were used to sort, group and categorize the initiatives. Results There were a total of 713 real-life workplace PA initiatives from different-sized organizations identified. These were categorized into five themes: active work and living, exercise and fitness programs, management and leadership, communication and dissemination, and facilities. Finally, feature trees showing a menu for real-life workplace PA practices were implemented. Conclusions Identifying real-life practice providing a state-of-the-art snapshot of current PA practices in workplaces, which is a starting point to better understand feasible practices in the context of small- and medium-sized workplaces.

IntroductionCommunity-based participatory research (CBPR) is a collaborative research approach that equally engages researchers and community stakeholders throughout all steps of the research process to facilitate social change and increase research relevance. Community advisory boards (CABs) are a CBPR tool in which individuals with lived experience and community organisations are integrated into the research process and ensure the work aligns with community priorities. We seek to (1) explore the best practices for the recruitment and engagement of people with lived experiences on CABs and (2) identify the scope of literature on minimising power dynamics between organisations and community members with lived experience who work on CABs together.Methods and analysisThis scoping review will follow the Arksey and O’Malley methodological framework, informed by Levac et al, and will be reported using a PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) diagram. Detailed and robust search strategies have been developed for Embase, Medline and PsychINFO. Grey literature references and reference lists of included articles published between 1 January 1990 and 30 March 2023 will be considered. Two reviewers will independently screen references in two successive stages of title/abstract and full-text screening. Conflicts will be decided by consensus or a third reviewer. Thematic analysis will be applied in three phases: open coding, axial coding and abstraction. Extracted data will be recorded and presented in a tabular format and/or graphical summaries, with a descriptive overview discussing how the research findings relate to the research questions. At this time, a preliminary search of peer-reviewed and grey literature has been conducted. Search results for peer-reviewed literature have been uploaded to Covidence for review and appraisal for relevance.Ethics and disseminationFormal ethics approval is not required for this review. Review findings will inform ongoing and future CBPR community advisory board dynamics.RegistrationThe protocol has been registered prospectively on the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/QF5D3)

ObjectivesHealth inequalities are systematic differences in health between people, which are avoidable and unfair. Globally, more political strategies are required to address health inequalities, which have increased since the global SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic, with a disproportionate impact on children. This scoping review aimed to identify and collate information on how hospitals around the world that deliver care to children have addressed health inequalities.DesignScoping review focused solely on grey literature.Eligibility criteria for selecting studiesFollowing Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines, a four-step approach to identifying literature was adopted.Data sourcesOverton, OpenGrey, OpenMD, Trip Database, DuckDuckGo, Google, targeted websites and children’s hospital websites were searched on March 2023 for items published since 2010.Data extraction and synthesisRetrieved items were screened against clear inclusion and exclusion criteria before data were extracted by two independent reviewers using a data extraction tool. Studies were tabulated by a hospital. A meta-analysis was not conducted due to the varied nature of studies and approaches.ResultsOur study identified 26 approaches to reduction of health inequalities, from 17 children’s hospitals. Approaches were categorised based on their size and scope. Seven approaches were defined as macro, including hospital-wide inequality strategies. Ten approaches were classed as meso, including the establishment of new departments and research centres. Micro approaches (n=9) included one-off projects or interventions offered to specific groups/services. Almost half of the reported approaches did not discuss the evaluation of impact.ConclusionsChildren’s hospitals provide a suitable location to conduct public health interventions. This scoping review provides examples of approaches on three scales delivered at hospitals across high-income countries. Hospitals with the most comprehensive and extensive range of approaches employ dedicated staff within the hospital and community. This review indicates the value of recruitment of both public health-trained staff and culturally similar staff to deliver community-based interventions.

IntroductionHealth inequalities are unfair, systematic differences in health between people. In the UK, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 recognised health inequalities as a responsibility of the National Health Service (NHS). Health inequalities were foregrounded in the publication of 2019 NHS Long Term Plan and during the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitals are well placed to address health inequalities through their role as anchor institutions. While many hospitals have begun to address inequalities, children are often overlooked or assumed to have the same needs as adult populations. This grey literature scoping review aims to identify, collate and present approaches taken by hospitals to address health inequalities in children and young people.Methods and analysisThis scoping review will follow Joanna Briggs Institute guidance. A four-step approach to identifying grey literature will be used. Literature will be examined to identify approaches that aim to address health inequalities. Literature must describe the health inequality they aim to address and be initiated by the hospital. It will exclude literature not available in English and published before 2010. Two reviewers will independently review the results of the searches using the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data will be extracted using a data extraction tool. Study findings will be presented in tabular form detailing the interventions identified.DisseminationThe review will synthesise information on worldwide hospital approaches to addressing child health inequalities. The findings will be used to inform guidelines for children’s hospitals in the UK and will be disseminated through national and international professional bodies, conferences and research papers.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought social, economic, and health impacts, requiring fast adaptation of health systems. Although information and communication technologies were essential for achieving this objective, the extent to which health systems incorporated this technology is unknown. The aim of this study was to map the use of digital health strategies in primary health care worldwide and their impact on quality of care during the COVID-19 pandemic. We performed a scoping review based on the Joanna Briggs Institute manual and guided by the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) Extension for Scoping Reviews. A systematic and comprehensive three-step search was performed in June and July 2021 in multidisciplinary health science databases and the gray literature. Data extraction and eligibility were performed by two authors independently and interpreted using thematic analysis. A total of 44 studies were included and six thematic groups were identified: characterization and geographic distribution of studies; nomenclatures of digital strategies adopted; types of information and communication technologies; characteristics of digital strategies in primary health care; impacts on quality of care; and benefits, limitations, and challenges of digital strategies in primary health care. The impacts on organization of quality of care were investigated by the majority of studies, demonstrating the strengthening of (1) continuity of care; (2) economic, social, geographical, time, and cultural accessibility; (3) coordination of care; (4) access; (5) integrality of care; (6) optimization of appointment time; (7) and efficiency. Negative impacts were also observed in the same dimensions, such as reduced access to services and increased inequity and unequal use of services offered, digital exclusion of part of the population, lack of planning for defining the role of professionals, disarticulation of actions with real needs of the population, fragile articulation between remote and face-to-face modalities, and unpreparedness of professionals to meet demands using digital technologies. The results showed the positive and negative impacts of remote strategies on quality of care in primary care and the inability to take advantage of the potential of technologies. This may demonstrate differences in the organization of fast and urgent implementation of digital strategies in primary health care worldwide. Primary health care must strengthen its response capacity, expand the use of information and communication technologies, and manage challenges using scientific evidence since digital health is important and must be integrated into public service.