Roles and Responsibilities of PhenX Expert Review Panels

Expert Review Panels (ERPs) are convened to make sure the content in the Toolkit remains highly relevant and useful to the scientific community and reflective of current science. ERPs are responsible for reviewing research domains in the Toolkit and making recommendations to keep, update, retire, or replace measurement protocols. They identify any gaps in the domain, consider the continued relevance of existing protocols, document the measurement protocols considered and the rationale for inclusion.  All ERP recommendations are vetted with the research community during outreach and approved by the PhenX Steering Committee (SC) before they are added to the Toolkit.

The SC recommended that ERPs review domains in the following order:

  1. Anthropometrics, Physical Activity and Physical Fitness, Nutrition and Dietary Supplements, Diabetes (Completed Oct. 1, 2015)
  2. Demographics, Environmental Exposures, Social Environments (Completed May 31, 2016)
  3. Substance Abuse and Addiction, Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Substances (Completed November 21, 2016),  
  4. Psychiatric, Neurology, Psychosocial (November 28, 2017)
  5. Reproductive Health (April 11, 2017)
  6. Respiratory (November 28, 2017)
  7. Speech and Hearing
  8. Cancer
  9. Ocular
  10. Oral Health
  11. Gastrointestinal
  12. Infectious Disease & Immunity
  13. Skin, Bone, Muscle and Joint

Timeline

ERPs usually perform their work in a five-month period.

Month 1 

Participate in an introductory conference call.

Month 2-3

Determine which measures should be retained as-is, updated, replaced or retired, and make appropriate updates in preparation for outreach.

Month 4

Conduct outreach with the scientific community to get feedback on the recommended changes. Participate in a teleconference to discuss feedback.

Month 5 

Provide the SC with all the recommended changes to measures. Review updates to be released into PhenX Toolkit.