Umbrella review

Research Methods

Definition. An umbrella review is a review of systematic reviews that brings together evidence from several reviews on a broad question.

Explanation

Umbrella reviews summarise the findings of existing reviews rather than primary studies. They are useful when many reviews address related interventions or outcomes, or when a decision maker needs one overview of a wide field (Aromataris et al., 2015).

Ioannidis (2009) notes that umbrella reviews must deal with overlap of primary studies between reviews, differences in review quality and inconsistent outcome definitions. Tools such as AMSTAR 2 are used to appraise the included reviews.

Related concepts

Systematic review Meta-analysis Evidence gap map Scoping review

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References

Aromataris, E., Fernandez, R., Godfrey, C. M., Holly, C., Khalil, H., & Tungpunkom, P. (2015). Summarizing systematic reviews: Methodological development, conduct and reporting of an umbrella review approach. International Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare, 13(3), 132–140.

Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2009). Integration of evidence from multiple meta-analyses: A primer on umbrella reviews, treatment networks and multiple treatments meta-analyses. CMAJ, 181(8), 488–493.

Cite this entry: Kurutkan, M. N. (2026). Umbrella review. In The Health Topics glossary. https://healthtopic.org/glossary/umbrella-review/

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