Evaluation of a semi-automated data extraction tool for public health literature-based reviews: Dextr

Abstract

Dextr provides similar performance to manual extraction in terms of recall and precision and greatly reduces data extraction time. Unlike other tools, Dextr provides the ability to extract complex concepts (e.g., multiple experiments with various exposures and doses within a single study), properly connect the extracted elements within a study, and effectively limit the work required by researchers to generate machine-readable, annotated exports. The Dextr tool addresses data-extraction challenges associated with environmental health sciences literature with a simple user interface, incorporates the key capabilities of user verification and entity connecting, provides a platform for further automation developments, and has the potential to improve data extraction for literature reviews in this and other fields.