Rapid Systematic Review Exploring Historical and Present Day National and International Governance during Pandemics

IntroductionPandemics have plagued mankind since records began, and while non-communicable disease pandemics are more common in high-income nations, infectious disease pandemics continue to affect all countries worldwide. To mitigate impact, national pandemic preparedness and response policies remain crucial. And in response to emerging pathogens of pandemic potential, public health policies must be both dynamic and adaptive. Yet, this process of policy change and adaptation remains opaque. Accordingly, this rapid systematic review will synthesise and analyse evaluative policy literature to develop a roadmap of policy changes that have occurred after each pandemic event, throughout both the 20th and 21st Century, in order to better inform future policy development. Methods and AnalysisA rapid systematic review will be conducted to assimilate and synthesise both peer-reviewed articles and grey literature that document the then current pandemic preparedness policy, and the subsequent changes to that policy, across high-, middle- and low-income countries. The rapid review will follow the PRISMA guidelines, and the literature search will be performed across five relevant databases, as well as various government websites to scan for grey literature. Articles will be screen against pre-agreed inclusion/ exclusion criteria, and data will be extracted using a pre-defined charting table. Ethics and DisseminationAll data rely on secondary, publicly available data sources; therefore no ethical clearance is required. Upon completion, the results of this study will be disseminated via the Imperial College London Community and published in an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Article SummaryO_ST_ABSStrengths and Limitations of this StudyC_ST_ABSO_LIThis systematic review protocol is the first to focus on a longitudinal analysis of pandemic preparedness policy development across low, middle and high income country settings C_LIO_LIThis protocol and subsequent review benefit from increased transparency, a systematised strategy (PRISMA), and a reduction in the risk of bias, through publication in an open access journal C_LIO_LIThis review will also capture grey literature - studies published outside peer-reviewed journals C_LIO_LIThis review protocol and methodology is not as robust as systematic reviews, therefore will lack some of the robustness often associated will classical systematic reviews C_LI Registration NumberOpen Science Framework: 10.17605/OSF.IO/VKA39