216 Chapter 7 Figure 3. Several stages of the project Policies during the COVID-19 crisis and health inequalities in Rotterdam. The second challenge was to conciliate the methods of systematic reviewing literature, which are labour-intensive, with the short time frame in which responses should be delivered, i.e. six months. Departing from a comprehensive literature search strategy, the researchers had to focus on higher-level evidence from umbrella and systematic reviews. While these should provide more reliable and robust effect estimates than individual studies, reviews were not always available for the exposures of interest (e.g. poverty and education). They offered limited detail needed to assess the information required. Time limitations also prevented us from doing a formal quality assessment of the evidence. In summary, the project exemplified how the current methods for secondary research (evidence synthesis) are challenging to bring together with the timings of policyrelevant questions. Adjusting to the timings of the project required some adaptation of methodological approaches that would be easily criticised in the process of peer-reviewed
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