2. Materials and methods
The protocol for the search and study characterization was designeda priori and is available (Rawal et al., 2019c). The term “frequency of detection”
(i.e., number of positive samples/total samples tested) was used for
cross-sectional studies to avoid term “prevalence” as we did not want
to mislead the readers to think that all studies reported actual
prevalence estimates. Anticipating based on quick search that most
eligible studies have a limited sample size and have not considered all
the age groups in that sampled population, and thus are likely not a
true estimate of the astrovirus prevalence within that population. This
study considered including data from records, following 4 phases (Fig
1).