During my time at McGill, I helped with the first stages of a large systematic review. The project investigated the relationship between habitual intake of a population’s self-selected diet as recorded in nationally representatitve nutrition surveys, the proportion of animal- and plant-based foods, and any resulting environmental impacts.
Establishing a research strategy that would include relevant works, while maintaing the balance of scope, required many brainstorming sessions and a lot of passionate discussions. The process of a systematic review highlights the importance of communication, team work, hypothesis scope and vision, and creation of a dependable inclusion/exclusion list.
The systematic review process involved fundamental skills, including: