SEARCHING FOR GREY LITERATURE FOR RAPID COMPILATION OF MALAYSIA’S HEALTH SYSTEMS RESPONSE DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNT

Abstract

Grey literature is a valuable source of information for evidence synthesis in public health, particularly when swift action is needed to address issues. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was an example where rapid knowledge sharing was quintessential as the world grappled with the management of a novel coronavirus that was spreading at an alarming rate. To document and contextualise the health systems strategies used to address the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia from January 2020 to April 2020, we conducted a rapid review of publicly available documents from WHO Global Research on Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) (WHO database), official government websites and local newspapers. This paper aims to describe the methods and discuss the lessons learnt from the review. In the early stage of the pandemic, published articles in the WHO database focused on clinical knowledge, hence we relied on grey literature as a primary source of information, mainly official government websites, which provided real-time information relevant to our study. Grey literature can be a good source of information for a rapid review of nascent and urgent topics particularly in the area of public health, however, a trade-off between comprehensiveness and efficiency has to be considered.