Skip to main content

Search

Menu

Methodologies for COVID-19 research and data

analysis

In March 2020, the

World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic, caused by
the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus. Following the call from the WHO to immediately
assess available data to learn what care approaches are most effective and
evaluate the effects of therapies, this collection aims to report on original
peer-reviewed research articles in methodological approaches to medical
research related to COVID-19.

BMC Medical Research Methodology invites you to submit to our new

collection: Methodologies for COVID-19 research and data analysis. 

This collection of articles has not been sponsored and articles undergo the
journal’s standard peer-review process overseen by our Guest Editors, Prof. Dr.
Livia Puljak (Catholic University of Croatia in Zagreb, Croatia) and Prof. Dr.
Martin Wolkewitz (University of Freiburg, Germany). You can contact our Guest
Editors through here. 

Submission is open to everyone. Before submitting your manuscript, please

ensure you have carefully read the submission guidelines for BMC Medical
Research Methodology. Information about our article-processing charges
and waivers can be found here.

This collection currently has no closing deadline. 

1. Short-term real-time prediction of total number of reported COVID-19 cases

and deaths in South Africa: a data driven approach

The rising burden of the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic in South Africa

has motivated the application of modeling strategies to predict the
COVID-19 cases and deaths. Reliable and accurate short and long-term
forec...
Authors:Tarylee Reddy, Ziv Shkedy, Charl Janse van Rensburg, Henry
Mwambi, Pravesh Debba, Khangelani Zuma and Samuel Manda
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:15
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 11 January 2021
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
2. Incorporating and addressing testing bias within estimates of epidemic
dynamics for SARS-CoV-2

The disease burden of SARS-CoV-2 as measured by tests from various

localities, and at different time points present varying estimates of
infection and fatality rates. Models based on these acquired data may
su...
Authors:Yasir Suhail, Junaid Afzal and Kshitiz
 Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:11
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 7 January 2021
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
3. COVID-19-related medical research: a meta-research and critical appraisal

Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, a large number of COVID-19-

related papers have been published. However, concerns about the risk
of expedited science have been raised. We aimed at reviewing and
catego...
Authors:Marc Raynaud, Huanxi Zhang, Kevin Louis, Valentin Goutaudier,
Jiali Wang, Quentin Dubourg, Yongcheng Wei, Zeynep Demir, Charlotte
Debiais, Olivier Aubert, Yassine Bouatou, Carmen Lefaucheur, Patricia
Jabre, Longshan Liu, Changxi Wang, Xavier Jouven…
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:1
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 4 January 2021
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
4. Use of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest registries to assess COVID-19 home
mortality

In most countries, the official statistics for the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) take account of in-hospital deaths but not those that occur
at home. The study’s objective was to introduce a methodology ...
 Authors:Hervé Hubert, Valentine Baert, Jean-Baptiste Beuscart and
Emmanuel Chazard
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:305
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 14 December 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
5. Strengthening policy coding methodologies to improve COVID-19 disease
modeling and policy responses: a proposed coding framework and
recommendations

In recent months, multiple efforts have sought to characterize COVID-19

social distancing policy responses. These efforts have used various
coding frameworks, but many have relied on coding methodologies that
...
Authors:Jeff Lane, Michelle M. Garrison, James Kelley, Priya Sarma and
Aaron Katz
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:298
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 8 December 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
6. Predictive accuracy of a hierarchical logistic model of cumulative SARS-CoV-
2 case growth until May 2020

Infectious disease predictions models, including virtually all

epidemiological models describing the spread of the SARS-CoV-2
 pandemic, are rarely evaluated empirically. The aim of the present study
was to inv...
Authors:Levente Kriston
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:278
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 16 November 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
7. Alternative graphical displays for the monitoring of epidemic outbreaks,
with application to COVID-19 mortality

Classic epidemic curves – counts of daily events or cumulative events

over time –emphasise temporal changes in the growth or size of
epidemic outbreaks. Like any graph, these curves have limitations: they
are ...
Authors:Thomas Perneger, Antoine Kevorkian, Thierry Grenet, Hubert
Gallée and Angèle Gayet-Ageron
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:248
Content type:Technical advance
 
Published on: 6 October 2020
The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Medical
Research Methodology 2020 20:265
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
8. COVID19-world: a shiny application to perform comprehensive country-
specific data visualization for SARS-CoV-2 epidemic
 Data analysis and visualization is an essential tool for exploring and
communicating findings in medical research, especially in
epidemiological surveillance.
Authors:Cristian Tebé, Joan Valls, Pau Satorra and Aurelio Tobías
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:235
Content type:Software
 
Published on: 21 September 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
9. Social network analysis methods for exploring SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing
data

Contact tracing data of severe acute respiratory syndrome

coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic is used to estimate basic
epidemiological parameters. Contact tracing data could also be
potentially used for assessin...
Authors:Karikalan Nagarajan, Malaisamy Muniyandi, Bharathidasan
Palani and Senthil Sellappan
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:233
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 17 September 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
10. Establishment of a pediatric COVID-19 biorepository: unique considerations
and opportunities for studying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on
children
 COVID-19, the disease caused by the highly infectious and transmissible
coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has quickly become a morbid global
pandemic. Although the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children is
less clin...
Authors:Rosiane Lima, Elizabeth F. Gootkind, Denis De la Flor, Laura J.
Yockey, Evan A. Bordt, Paolo D’Avino, Shen Ning, Katerina Heath,
Katherine Harding, Jaclyn Zois, Grace Park, Margot Hardcastle, Kathleen
A. Grinke, Sheila Grimmel, Susan P. Davidson, Pamela J. Forde…
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:228
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 11 September 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
11. Statistical design of Phase II/III clinical trials for testing therapeutic
interventions in COVID-19 patients

Because of unknown features of the COVID-19 and the complexity of

the population affected, standard clinical trial designs on treatments
may not be optimal in such patients. We propose two independent
clinical...
Authors:Shesh N. Rai, Chen Qian, Jianmin Pan, Anand Seth, Deo Kumar
Srivastava and Aruni Bhatnagar
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:220
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 31 August 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
 o ViewPDF
12. Rapid establishment of a COVID-19 perinatal biorepository: early lessons
from the first 100 women enrolled

Collection of biospecimens is a critical first step to understanding the

impact of COVID-19 on pregnant women and newborns - vulnerable
populations that are challenging to enroll and at risk of exclusion from ...
Authors:Lydia L. Shook, Jessica E. Shui, Adeline A. Boatin, Samantha
Devane, Natalie Croul, Lael M. Yonker, Juan D. Matute, Rosiane S. Lima,
Muriel Schwinn, Dana Cvrk, Laurel Gardner, Robin Azevedo, Suzanne
Stanton, Evan A. Bordt, Laura J. Yockey, Alessio Fasano…
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:215
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 26 August 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
13. Disease progression of cancer patients during COVID-19 pandemic: a
comprehensive analytical strategy by time-dependent modelling

As the whole world is experiencing the cascading effect of a new

pandemic, almost every aspect of modern life has been disrupted.
Because of health emergencies during this period, widespread fear has
resulted ...
Authors:Atanu Bhattacharjee, Gajendra K. Vishwakarma, Souvik Banerjee
and Sharvari Shukla
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:209
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 12 August 2020
o ViewFull Text
  
o ViewPDF
14. A four-step strategy for handling missing outcome data in randomised trials
affected by a pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) presents a variety of challenges

for ongoing clinical trials, including an inevitably higher rate of missing
outcome data, with new and non-standard reasons for missingness....
Authors:Suzie Cro, Tim P. Morris, Brennan C. Kahan, Victoria R. Cornelius
and James R. Carpenter
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:208
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 12 August 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
15. Joint analysis of duration of ventilation, length of intensive care, and
mortality of COVID-19 patients: a multistate approach

The clinical progress of patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 is often

associated with severe pneumonia which may require intensive care,
invasive ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
T...
Authors:Derek Hazard, Klaus Kaier, Maja von Cube, Marlon Grodd, Lars
Bugiera, Jerome Lambert and Martin Wolkewitz
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:206
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 11 August 2020
o ViewFull Text
  
o ViewPDF
16. COVID-19 prevalence estimation by random sampling in population - optimal
sample pooling under varying assumptions about true prevalence

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases divided by population size is

used as a coarse measurement for the burden of disease in a
population. However, this fraction depends heavily on the sampling
intensity and...
Authors:Ola Brynildsrud
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:196
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 23 July 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
17. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): an evidence map of medical literature

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in December 2019, a

substantial body of COVID-19 medical literature has been generated. As
of June 2020, gaps and longitudinal trends in the COVID-19 medical
litera...
Authors:Nan Liu, Marcel Lucas Chee, Chenglin Niu, Pin Pin Pek, Fahad
Javaid Siddiqui, John Pastor Ansah, David Bruce Matchar, Sean Shao Wei
Lam, Hairil Rizal Abdullah, Angelique Chan, Rahul Malhotra, Nicholas
Graves, Mariko Siyue Koh, Sungwon Yoon, Andrew Fu Wah Ho, Daniel
Shu Wei Ting…
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:177
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 2 July 2020
 o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
18. Group testing performance evaluation for SARS-CoV-2 massive scale
screening and testing

The capacity of the current molecular testing convention does not allow
high-throughput and community level scans of COVID-19 infections.
The diameter in the current paradigm of shallow tracing is unlikely to ...
Authors:Ozkan Ufuk Nalbantoglu
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:176
Content type:Technical advance
 
Published on: 2 July 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
19. Research methodology and characteristics of journal articles with original
data, preprint articles and registered clinical trial protocols about COVID-19

The research community reacted rapidly to the emergence of COVID-19.

We aimed to assess characteristics of journal articles, preprint articles,
and registered trial protocols about COVID-19 and its causal agen...
Authors:Mahir Fidahic, Danijela Nujic, Renata Runjic, Marta Civljak, Filipa
Markotic, Zvjezdana Lovric Makaric and Livia Puljak
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:161
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 22 June 2020
o ViewFull Text
  
o ViewPDF
20. Using online technologies to improve diversity and inclusion in cognitive
interviews with young people

We aimed to assess the feasibility of using multiple technologies to

recruit and conduct cognitive interviews among young people across
the United States to test items measuring sexual and reproductive
empower...
Authors:Ushma D. Upadhyay and Heather Lipkovich
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:159
Content type:Technical advance
 
Published on: 16 June 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
21. Towards reduction in bias in epidemic curves due to outcome
misclassification through Bayesian analysis of time-series of laboratory test
results: case study of COVID-19 in Alberta, Canada and Philadelphia, USA

Despite widespread use, the accuracy of the diagnostic test for SARS-
CoV-2 infection is poorly understood. The aim of our work was to better
quantify misclassification errors in identification of true cases of...
Authors:Igor Burstyn, Neal D. Goldstein and Paul Gustafson
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:146
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 6 June 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
 o ViewPDF
22. The semi-automation of title and abstract screening: a retrospective
exploration of ways to leverage Abstrackr’s relevance predictions in
systematic and rapid reviews

We investigated the feasibility of using a machine learning tool’s

relevance predictions to expedite title and abstract screening.
Authors:Allison Gates, Michelle Gates, Meghan Sebastianski, Samantha
Guitard, Sarah A. Elliott and Lisa Hartling
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:139
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 3 June 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
23. Social media as a recruitment platform for a nationwide online survey of
COVID-19 knowledge, beliefs, and practices in the United States:
methodology and feasibility analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic has evolved into one of the most impactful
health crises in modern history, compelling researchers to explore
innovative ways to efficiently collect public health data in a timely
manner....
Authors:Shahmir H. Ali, Joshua Foreman, Ariadna Capasso, Abbey M.
Jones, Yesim Tozan and Ralph J. DiClemente
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:116
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 13 May 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
 o ViewPDF
24. Current methods for development of rapid reviews about diagnostic tests:
an international survey

Rapid reviews (RRs) have emerged as an efficient alternative to time-

consuming systematic reviews—they can help meet the demand for
accelerated evidence synthesis to inform decision-making in healthcare.
The s...
Authors:Ingrid Arevalo-Rodriguez, Karen R. Steingart, Andrea C. Tricco,
Barbara Nussbaumer-Streit, David Kaunelis, Pablo Alonso-Coello, Susan
Baxter, Patrick M. Bossuyt, José Ignacio Emparanza and Javier Zamora
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:115
Content type:Research article
 
Published on: 13 May 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF
25. Methodological challenges of analysing COVID-19 data during the pandemic
Authors:Martin Wolkewitz and Livia Puljak
Citation:BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:81
Content type:Editorial
 
Published on: 14 April 2020
o ViewFull Text
 
o ViewPDF

 Read more on our blogs

 Receive BMC newsletters

 Manage article alerts

  Language editing for authors

 Scientific editing for authors

 Policies

 Accessibility

 Press center

 Support and Contact

 Leave feedback

 Careers

Follow BMC

 BMC Twitter page

 BMC Facebook page
 BMC Weibo page
By using this website, you agree to our Terms and Conditions, California
Privacy Statement, Privacy statement and Cookies policy. Manage cookies/Do
not sell my data we use in the preference centre.

© 2021 BioMed Central Ltd unless otherwise stated. Part of Springer Nature.