Systematic literature search to assist EFSA in the preparatory work for the safety assessment of Novel Food applications and Traditional Food notifications
Krystof Dibusz, Pavla Vejvodova
Abstract
The main objective of this project was to develop a search strategy and a standard operating procedure, to perform systematic literature searches and screening of titles and abstracts based on pre-defined inclusion/exclusion criteria for articles related to Novel Food/ Traditional Food applications received from the European Commission. In addition, two modules for testing of keywords and their weights and for rating and evaluation of titles and abstracts were developed. A list of keywords and weights used for rating of articles by their relevance was developed for each Novel Food/ Traditional Food category, i.e. plants, insects, fungi, algae and chemicals. During the project, 36 Novel Food/ Traditional Food requests were received and successfully processed by developing a detailed search protocol for each request that summarised the evaluation process.