ROBINS-E is a tool for evaluating the risk of bias in observational studies of exposures – where the ROBINS-I is a tool for evaluating the risk of bias in observational studies of interventions. Even though the ROBINS-E seem to be the obvious choice some criticism has been raised concerning the validity and applicability of ROBINS-E (Bero, L., Chartres, N., Diong, J. et al. The risk of bias in observational studies of exposures (ROBINS-E) tool: concerns arising from application to observational studies of exposures. Syst Rev 7, 242 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-018-0915-2). Even though some of the same criticism has been raised concerning ROBINS-I, this may still be preferable as the NOS overestimate the quality of the included studies compared to ROBINS-I.