COVID-19 is a novel virus that has contributed to a worldwide pandemic unlike any other that most of us have seen in this lifetime. The rapid spread of the disease has shuttered the world’s economy and productivity, but in turn has also sparked a great deal of interest in the scientific community and is the topic of a rapidly growing body of literature. Sciome’s rapid Evidence Map (rEM) of risk and protective factors in the COVID-19 literature published in early 2020, utilized a structured framework to summarize this compilation of scientific information, in particular highlighting where a wealth of evidence and also gaps in the literature exist. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence map that explores the available scientific literature related to risk and protective factors for COVID-19. Our rEM identified promising research areas such as age, gender and comorbidity association with COVID-19 and supporting literature to potentially inform a follow-up review, such as a systematic review, and other areas e.g. risk factors in susceptible sub-groups, risk factors in children where evidence is lacking and further research may be necessary. This rEM was developed within one calendar month and represents a useful tool for quickly synthesizing literature on any particular topic of interest and identifying data-rich/data-poor areas within the topic on hand that may benefit from additional investigation
