Systematic Review of Stepped-Wedge Designs in Sub-Saharan Africa

85 studies on stepped-wedge designs in sub-Saharan Africa were systematically reviewed, involving a total of 1,895,788 participants. The review, authored by Zaidat Adesola Musa and published in 2026, covers studies from January 2000 to March 2024 across diverse health domains like HIV/AIDS and maternal health.

Use Cases

• Analyze the distribution of study characteristics like facility-based versus community-based settings across the 85 reviewed studies.
• Examine the relationship between the number of clusters and the number of steps used in different stepped-wedge design implementations.
• Map the geographic and health domain coverage of studies, such as HIV/AIDS or malaria interventions, across sub-Saharan Africa.
• Review the statistical methods and sample size calculations, including assumptions like intra-cluster correlation coefficients, detailed in the included studies.

Strengths

• The review synthesizes data from 85 distinct studies, providing a broad evidence base.
• It aggregates findings from a total participant pool of 1,895,788 individuals across all included studies.
• The methodology followed a registered PRISMA protocol, ensuring a systematic and transparent review process.
• The temporal coverage spans over 24 years, from January 2000 to March 2024.

Limitations

• The dataset is a single 169.1 KB PDF document, containing only the review's text and not the underlying raw data from the 85 studies.
• As a systematic review, the data consists of summarized findings and extracted study characteristics, not primary observational or experimental records.
• The scope is limited to studies using stepped-wedge designs in sub-Saharan Africa, which may not be generalizable to other methodologies or regions.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Zaidat Adesola Musa.

Collection Method

Systematic review following a PRISMA protocol, searching five electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library), Google Scholar, and citation tracking.

Time Range

January 2000 to March 2024

Freshness

The review includes studies up to March 2024 and was last updated in March 2026.

Geography

Sub-Saharan Africa