[Online Tool] TEDX PFAS Systematic Evidence Map

By Katherine E. Pelch, Anna Read, Taylor A.M. Wolff, Carol F. Kwiatkowski. Julia Varshavsky, Keisha Rose
December 5, 2019

The Endocrine Disruption Exchange presents its "PFAS Systematic Evidence Map," an interactive database to help end-users assess the large quantity of PFAS literature. 

Problem:

The scientific literature on PFAS has increased dramatically in the last decade. Staying abreast of the current PFAS health effects literature is a major barrier for setting effective regulations to protect human and environmental health. Additionally, as communities learn of their own PFAS contamination, citizens and citizen-led groups have a desire to know how these chemicals may impact the health of their communities. Regulators, scientists, NGOs, and citizens needs an efficient way to stay informed on the growing health and toxicology literature related to PFAS. 

Goals of the Evidence Map:

  1. To build a systematic evidence map (interactive database) that identifies and organizes the available health and toxicology related literature on a set of 29 PFAS of emerging and growing concern.
  2. Remove the barriers associated with manually assessing large volumes of data by affording end users a broad overview of the evidence base, allowing fast identification of emerging trends, including the presence of evidence gaps and evidence clusters.
  3. To be a "living" database - set up to allow periodic updates so that this resource can stay current. 

What You Will See in the Evidence Map:

Systematic evidence maps do not attempt to synthesize or integrate evidence to answer any one specific research question, but rather provide users with the means of exploring the evidence according to their own varied interests - for example, to identify a trend which might form the basis of future analysis or further research. Therefore, please look to the study abstracts (found in study details) for summary statements on the results of each study. Both studies reporting and not reporting associations are included in the database. 

 

To learn more about the methodology for the evidence map, view, "PFAS health effects database: Protocol for a systematic evidence map."