UNICEF-PHFI Series on newborn and child health, India: methodology for systematic reviews on child health priorities for advocacy and action.

India is committed to reducing childhood mortality and morbidity. This requires evidence-based policy and practice in the realm of public health. This in turn necessitates advocacy and action (among all stakeholders), focused on locally relevant issues. A collaboration to work towards this goal was forged between the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF), India; and a team of independent researchers. As a first step, a systematic review of literature on four priority areas of newborn care (community based interventions) and child health (acute respiratory infection, diarrheal disease, anemia), was undertaken to address important issues including epidemiology, interventions for management, and operational issues of planning, implementing, and measuring actions at a programmatic level. This paper describes the development of the methodology for undertaking these systematic reviews including the process for framing of research questions, building a research team, and executing the systematic review (literature search strategy, data extraction, analysis, and reporting). The challenges associated with ensuring robust methodology, are also described.