Systematic Review of Public Health Measures at Sporting Mass Gatherings

Lucia Mullen's systematic review analyzes the type, effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of public health interventions at sporting mass gatherings to reduce respiratory pathogen spread. The review includes 34 articles assessing 37 sporting events, primarily Olympic Games, with searches conducted up to July 2025. It provides a structured assessment of multi-layered intervention packages used in both pre-pandemic and pandemic-era contexts.

Use Cases

• Classify intervention packages as effective, non-effective, or indeterminate based on the review's developed framework.
• Analyze the association between specific intervention types (bubble approaches, routine testing, masking) and reported feasibility or acceptability outcomes.
• Extract data on 37 specific sporting mass gatherings, including event type and described public health strategies, for comparative case studies.
• Identify common feasibility challenges linked to scalability issues and spectator numbers across the reviewed events.

Strengths

• Includes 34 peer-reviewed articles providing a structured evidence base.
• Assesses 37 distinct sporting mass gathering events, offering multiple case studies.
• Searches were conducted in July 2025, ensuring inclusion of recent pandemic-era planning.

Limitations

• The dataset is a single 194.5 KB PDF document, limiting direct computational analysis.
• Findings are synthesized from secondary sources (articles), not primary event data.
• Sample size is limited to 34 articles, which may not capture all relevant events or interventions.

Provenance

Source

Lucia Mullen, published on figshare.

Collection Method

Systematic review of literature from Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Scopus, Web of Science, and other databases.

Time Range

Literature published from 2000 to July 2025.

Freshness

Last updated in April 2026, with literature searches up to July 2025.

Geography

Global coverage of sporting mass gatherings.