Research Thursday. Breastfeeding and Health Outcomes for Infants and Children: A Systematic Review
April 24, 2025
BACKGROUND
Is it a good study - What is a systematic review?
The study this week involves an analysis using systematic reviews and existing studies. What is a systematic review?
At the top of the level of evidence pyramid, where the quality of evidence is the best, is “systematic review and meta-analysis.”
Systematic reviews provide a comprehensive and authoritative summary of existing evidence on a specific topic, helping one to make informed decisions based on the best available evidence.
What is the difference between a systematic review and a meta-analysis?
A systematic review is an objective, reproducible method to find answers to a well-defined research question, by collecting all available studies related to that question and reviewing and analyzing their results.
A meta-analysis differs from a systematic review in that it uses statistical methods on estimates from two or more different studies to form a pooled estimate.
Following a systematic review, if it is not possible to form a pooled estimate, it can be published as is without progressing to a meta-analysis; however, if it is possible to form a pooled estimate from the extracted data, a meta-analysis can be attempted. Ahn article
Is it a good study - What is an Impact Factor?
Another thing to look at when evaluating a study is where the study is published. Research journals are typically rated using a variety of metrics, with the most common being Impact Factor. Impact Factor measures the average number of citations an article in a journal receives over a specific period. This study was published in the journal, Pediatrics - which had a 2022 impact factor of 8.0, according to the Journal Citation Reports. This puts it among the highest impact factors in the field of pediatrics and one of the top 100 most-cited journals in science and medicine.
Here is the citation.
Patnode CD, Henrikson NB, Webber EM, et al. Breastfeeding and Health Outcomes for Infants and Children: A Systematic Review. Pediatrics. 2025 Apr 17. doi: 10.1542/peds.2025-071516