Peter C. Gøtzsche, director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, shares his experience of being on the Cochrane Board after returning from the GES.
I have participated in two face-to-face Board meetings. This work has been much more interesting than I thought it would be. If you walk down the Grand Canyon, you will see how beautiful it is, but if…
Hanna Martikainen conducts PhD research at Paris Diderot University on the French-language translation of Cochrane Systematic Review abstracts. Having previously worked as a translation coordinator and post-editor for Cochrane France, she now teaches a class in post-editing medical LSP at the Department of Cross-Cultural Studies and Applied…
When it comes to health decisions, we want them to be informed by trustworthy, rigorous and reliable evidence. The current gold standard in providing this evidence are Cochrane Reviews, but with false and sensationalized information surrounding us how do we ensure that they remain trustworthy, efficient and sustainable? Here to explore this issue…
Heather Bagley (COMET), Sarah Gorst (MRC Hub for Trials Methodology Research), Richard Morley (Cochrane) Bridget Young (COMET) explore how patient-imporant outcomes could be identified for Cochrane Reviews.
An enthusiastic group of healthcare consumers, Cochrane authors, and researchers joined a workshop jointly run by Richard Morley…
Julie Wood is Head of Cochrane's Communications and External Affairs team, as well as Co-chair of the newly formed Knowledge Translation Advisory Group. Here she provides an update on the development of Cochrane's Knowledge Translation Framework, and outlines next steps for Cochrane contributors to get involved with implementation.
Cochrane has…
The Targeted Updates project aims to provide policy-makers, in particular guideline developers, with up-to-date information from Cochrane Reviews, tailored to their needs and working to a fast timeline. Targeted Updates use Cochrane Reviews as their foundation, but focus on updating selected comparisons and outcomes, working in close consultation…
Cochrane Reviews are systematic reviews of research in health care and policy, and are internationally recognized as a high-quality source of evidence for decision-making. They collate and summarize all the best available research evidence on the effects of healthcare interventions or the accuracy of diagnostic tests into a systematic review.…
A new chapter for Cochrane
As an evidence-producing and knowledge-diffusing organization Cochrane’s past, present, and future success is built on the quality of the people it attracts and retains. We are so proud of the tens of thousands of volunteers who work for us because we know that what we do and the impact for good that we have as an…
Reposted, with permission, from Cochrane Australia. Last month Cochrane Australia Research Fellow Annie Synnot and Senior Research Fellow Julian Elliott took living systematic reviews on the road in something of a whirlwind tour of the United States and Canada. Here Annie shares some of the highlights, including a timely visit to the US…
Dear Colleagues,
Cochrane’s Editor in Chief, David Tovey, wrote to you last on 20 April following a highly successful meeting of the Co-ordinating Editors (Co-Eds) Board and consultations with Managing Editors, Information Specialists, and the Methods community in Geneva. Participants at this meeting discussed proposed Cochrane Review Group (CRG…
David Tovey is the Editor in Chief of the Cochrane Library, and has been working with the Cochrane Editorial Unit (CEU) and the wider Cochrane collaboration in this role since 2009. In this post, he discusses Cochrane's conflict of interest policy and recent calls for re-assessment of its application in the conduct of Cochrane Reviews.
This blog…
Sylvia de Haan is Cochrane's Partnerships Co-ordinator, and blogs periodically about work with our partners. You can read more in her previous blogs about engagement with the WHO, as well our partnership with Wikipedia.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is Cochrane's largest external partner, and one of our oldest, with whom we have been in…
Cochrane Mexico has launched an initiative to bring Cochrane Reviews into daily practice, in order to promote informed decision making. Dr. Giordano Pérez-Gaxiola, of Cochrane Mexico and The Pediatric Hospital of Sinaloa, who is leading the initiative, explains more below.
How did the idea arise?
For a while, we had been thinking about how to…
Every year Cochrane recognizes the outstanding work of Kenneth Warren, a scientist, extremely influential in drawing attention to the 'great neglected diseases' that plague people in developing countries. He prioritized the need for valid summaries of key research studies and to the way electronic media could be used to disseminate results of…
Reposted with permission from Evidently Cochrane
This blog by Sarah Chapman @SarahChapman30 reflects on how Cochrane UK shared Cochrane evidence on replacement of peripheral venous catheters. The blog was first published as an example of using social media to share research on the website of The HARTS of the possible project, which is…
How can we make it easier for health practitioners to access current evidence to inform treatments? One of Cochrane’s responses has been Cochrane Crowd, a platform that enables anyone with an interest in health to dive into tasks that help identify and describe health research. Cochrane Crowd is making it easier for health researchers to find the…
2017 sees Cochrane enter its fourth year of Strategy to 2020, which aims to put Cochrane evidence at the heart of health decision-making all over the world.
Cochrane’s focus during 2016 has been on the delivery of mission critical initiatives, many of which will begin widespread implementation in 2017. These include changes to the…
In March 2017, members of Cochrane Croatia, led by Irena Zakarija-Grković, recorded their first podcasts in Croatian. In 2016, Irena received a small grant from the Croatian Ministry of Science for the ‘Popularization of Science’, and what better way to do that than by translating and recording Cochrane Podcasts!
First, Hayley Hassan, from the…
Working together to create health evidence & transform biomedical discovery
Got a burning passion for health? Ready to make a difference? We’ve got you covered.
Join Cochrane Crowd, our partner Mark2Cure and our collective global volunteer network for an online MedLit Blitz, 9-12 May.
Together we will create health evidence and transform…
TaskExchange makes life easy for review authors
Elizabeth Clearfield is a regular task poster on TaskExchange, Cochrane’s online platform that connects people needing help with their systematic review, with people who have the time and skills to help. Elizabeth sat down recently for a chat with Emily Steele, Community Engagement and Partnerships…
To complement the papers for the Governing Board, we are publishing a report from the Cochrane Editorial Unit (CEU) about our activities over the past 12 months. It has been a challenging period for many reasons, but the recent UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) report strongly endorses our Strategy to 2020, and in particular goals 1…
The Targeted Updates project aims to provide policy-makers, in particular guideline developers, with up-to-date information from Cochrane Reviews, tailored to their needs and working to a fast timeline. Targeted Updates use Cochrane Reviews as their foundation, but focus on updating selected comparisons and outcomes, working in close consultation…
Dario Sambunjak and Chris Watts have been working with Cochrane’s Learning and Support team (L&SD) as Learning & Support Officers since May 2015. In this post they share information about a new training resource that L&SD has recently developed, working closely with the Cochrane Editorial Unit (CEU), to help Cochrane Editors avoid…
Cochrane Malaysia has just issued certificates of recognition to reward five translators and editors for their outstanding contribution to the Malay translation project in 2016. Dr. Teguh Haryo Sasongko, project manager of the Malay translation project, explains how annual certificates are motivating their volunteers.
Could you tell us more about…
Sylvia de Haan is Cochrane's Partnerships Coordinator. She focuses on building and maintaining Cochrane’s external partnerships, including with Wikipedia. This blog tells about the experience of a small pilot project aimed at engaging volunteers in editing Wikipedia articles using Cochrane (and other) content.
Wikipedia's health content was made…
It’s been a year since the ‘What are systematic reviews’ video was published on Cochrane.org. It was prepared by the Cochrane Consumers and Communication, La Trobe University and generously support by Cochrane Australia. The video has 28 thousand views and counting and the resources have been included in Wikipedia. Jack Nunn from Cochrane…
The Cochrane Gynaecological, Neuro-oncology and Orphan Cancers Group (CGNOC) has previously undertaken several prioritization exercises. In 2007, the Cochrane Gynaecological Cancer Group (as it was known then) worked with NHS Gynaecological Cancer Network, a range of professional bodies including the British Gynaecological Cancer Society (BGCS)…
Sarah Chapman is a knowledge broker at Cochrane UK. She writes and edits their weekly blog, Evidently Cochrane, and helps to shares Cochrane evidence across social media platforms.
Jack Leahy manages Cochrane UK's digital presence, monitors impact, and helps develop new ways of sharing Cochrane evidence.
You may have noticed 'vlogshots…
Since joining the French volunteer translation project last year, Martin Vuillème has made it a priority to regularly translate Cochrane abstracts and plain language summaries. After sharing his experience as a Cochrane volunteer translator with us in comic strip format, we invited him to write a blog post to tell his story. Here he explains the…
Every year Cochrane recognizes the outstanding work of Thomas C Chalmers, famous for his role in the development of the randomized controlled trial and meta-analysis in medical research. Thomas is perhaps best known for the notion ‘randomize the first patient’, his belief that it is more ethical to randomize patients than to treat them in the…
This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority setting case study page.
The Cochrane Incontinence Group (CIG) were one of the first Groups to use the James Lind Alliance (JLA) Priority Setting Partnership model almost eight years ago. This approach…
Luis Eduardo Fontes is a physician, specializing in intensive care and gastroenterology, and a Professor of Medicine at Petrópolis Medical School. He is also one of the five Affiliate Directors of the Cochrane Brazilian Network, launched in 2016, and here explains about his exciting new role, and experience hosting the first Cochrane Symposium in…
Being able to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) is a critical part of most Cochrane Reviews that evaluate the effects of health treatments. In May last year Cochrane launched Cochrane Crowd. This platform enables anyone with an interest in health to dive into tasks that help identify and describe health research.
By late December 2016…
Xun Li coordinates the Simplified Chinese translation project. Here she tells us about an initiative to incorporate the translation of Cochrane abstracts and Plain Language Summaries into medical English courses at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (BUCM).
How did the initiative begin?
The idea of making the translation of Cochrane…
Richard Morley is Cochrane's Consumer Co-ordinator. Cross-posted, with permission, from the Cochrane Consumer Network site.
In 2015 the Cochrane Consumer Network took a hard look at the state of consumer involvement in Cochrane and found much to celebrate:
a long history of consumer involvement, going back to the start of Cochrane
a network…
This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority setting case study page.
Until recently Cochrane Heart worked mainly with expert clinicians in an internal prioritization activity. For example, between May and August 2016 the group assessed and…
Howard White is the CEO of the Campbell Collaboration. Cross-posted, with permission, from the Campbell Blog.
The National Institute for Clinical Evidence (NICE) has produced new consultation guidance on ‘Air pollution - outdoor air quality and health’. Not very newsworthy you might think. Well you’d be wrong.
The Telegraph (UK) ran the story on…
This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority setting case study page.
The Cochrane Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Group moved to Bogota, Colombia in 2012, where it is now part of the School of Medicine at the Universidad Nacional de…
An estimated $170 billion of research funding is wasted each year because its outcomes cannot be used [1]. The waste occurs during 5 stages of research production: question selection, study design, research conduct, publication, and reporting [2,3]. Much of this waste appears to be avoidable or remediable, but there are few proposed solutions.…
Cochrane CEO Mark Wilson, provides a recap of events from the Colloquium and what we have to look forward to.
Dear Colleagues,
It’s three weeks since the close of our 2016 Cochrane Colloquium held in the vibrant city of Seoul, South Korea, and therefore a good time to draw breath after the frenetic activity that took place there to assess the…
The Targeted Updates project aims to provide policy-makers, in particular guideline developers, with up-to-date information from Cochrane Reviews, tailored to their needs and working to a fast timeline. Targeted Updates use Cochrane Reviews as their foundation, but focus on updating selected comparisons and outcomes, working in close consultation…
Taryn Young, Senior Specialist Scientist from Cochrane South Africa, shares news of a recent workshop in Cape Town.
How do you develop a diagram to show how HIV testing could reduce HIV transmission? Or how providing communities with latrines could reduce the number of children with diarrhoea? If you want to know, then you should have come…
This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority settings page.
The Cochrane Consumers and Communication Review Group (CCRG) had a few goals in mind when they embarked on a recent prioritization exercise. They wanted to make sure their portfolio…
Cochrane Brazil manages a team of volunteer translators who work on systematic review abstracts and Plain Language Summaries. Part of this process involves editing and ensuring the quality of the Portuguese translations produced before they are published. Due to the popularity of WhatsApp in the country, Patricia Logullo, translation editor at…
Taking a closer look at how we store blogshots and user engagement with them on twitter.
Muriah Umoquit, Internal Communications and Content Officer with Cochrane’s Communications & External Affairs Department, spent the last quarter looking at the newest Cochrane dissemination product, blogshots. Here she shares the results:
We have…
This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority setting case study page.
The Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group (CTAG) has a longstanding commitment to prioritization, largely through informal discussions at the editorial base and by monitoring…
This week is Peer Review Week, a global event to celebrate and debate peer review. This is the second year the event has taken place and it has expanded to involve over 20 organizations with an interest in peer review. You can read more on the Peer Review Week website and by following #PeerRevWk16 on Twitter. This year's theme is Recognition for…
Angéline Serre has joined the Cochrane Communication and External Affairs Department (CEAD) in September 2015 with the aim of stimulating and accompanying the participation of Cochrane teams in European funding programs. She has a background in health research (PhD in neurosciences) and an expertise in developing applications for EU calls for…
Salomé Planas is the Spanish translation coordinator for Cochrane Iberoamérica and has been involved with Cochrane since 1998. Here she reflects on her experience and the changes she has seen during the last 18 years, as well as explaining why she is proud to be part of Cochrane.
How did you first get involved with Cochrane?
"I got involved in…
Cochrane Russia has had great success translating and recording podcasts at Kazan Federal University. The initiative involves students, medical residents, and others interested in Cochrane evidence, and is le by Liliya Eugenevna Ziganshina, Director of Cochrane Russia, and Head of the Department of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology at Kazan Federal…
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Complex Reviews Support Unit provides timely and appropriate support for the delivery of complex reviews that are funded and/or supported by NIHR - including Cochrane Reviews! Project Manager of the unit, Mora Aitken, answers a few questions to introduce the unit more widely to the Cochrane…
Cochrane’s translation strategy, established in 2014, is aimed at strengthening impact in non-English speaking countries. More than 2,500 translations of Cochrane Review summaries have been published in the first half of 2016 alone. Hayley Hassan, Cochrane’s Translations Support Officer, offers an insight into the impressive work of Cochrane’s…
Dario Sambunjak is a Learning & Support Officer at the Cochrane Central Executive and acts as the secretary to the recently established Cochrane Equity & Diversity Task Force. In this blog post, he discusses the first and last principles – “alpha and omega” - underpinning Cochrane’s work and invites Cochrane contributors to join in the…
You may have noticed that the Altmetric ‘doughnut’ is now included at the start of every Cochrane Review and Protocol. But what does it mean? Working with Gavin Stewart, Cochrane Editor for our publishing partner Wiley, we’ve come up with all you need to know, including how authors, Managing Editors, and Review Groups can make the most of it.…
Jack Leahy is an Engagement Officer with Cochrane UK. Jack curates the new Cochrane Tumblr account, where the popular Cochrane blogshots are shared. These blogshots summarize a Cochrane Review with a visual and are easy to share and consume on social media – a perfect fit for the miroblogging platform that is Tumblr!
If you follow any of the…
It’s now two months since we launched Cochrane’s new citizen science platform, Cochrane Crowd, so it’s time celebrate our achievements and share the exciting plans for the months ahead.
Firstly a big thank you to our existing Embase screening project crowd for coming along on this transition with us and giving such helpful feedback on the early…
The World Health Assembly is an important meeting for Cochrane and our partnerships. Here Sylvia de Haan, Partnership Coordinator for Cochrane, discusses what it is, our involvement thus far, and plans on making the most of our attendance.
Once a year the World Health Assembly (WHA) brings together 3,000 people representing 194 member states and…
David Roberts, a public health registrar with Cochrane UK, recently helped with a Cochrane stand at a Public Health conference. Here he shares a bit about the experience and gives tips for other groups sharing Cochrane Evidence.
The Faculty of Public Health Annual Conference was held in June in Brigton, East Sussex, UK. Representatives of…
The Cochrane Editorial Unit (CEU) has been undertaking pre-publication screening of Cochrane Reviews since 2013. In that time a team of editors from the CEU has assessed hundreds of submissions, and has not only identified areas for improvement within individual reviews, but also extracted and gathered data to help improve production practices…
This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Dr. Jimee Hwang, a significant contributor to the work of Cochrane Infectious Diseases, with an interview. This article is one in the "Meet the Editor" series produced by the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Groups, you can read more in the series here.
Could you describe where you…
The Targeted Updates project aims to provide policy-makers, in particular guideline developers, with up-to-date information from Cochrane Reviews, tailored to their needs and working to a fast timeline. Targeted Updates use Cochrane Reviews as their foundation, but focus on updating selected comparisons and outcomes, working in close…
Maja Boban recently used TaskExchange to get some help with her Cochrane review, and we thought you might like to hear how it worked out.
Maja is a psychologist and a Senior Advisor in HTA at the Agency for Quality and Accreditation in Health Care and Social Welfare in Croatia. Hi Maja!
Maja was working on a review of multimedia-delivered…
The Cochrane-Wikipedia partnership started in 2014 with the aim of improving the evidence base of Wikipedia articles using Cochrane Reviews and other relevant evidence. We are delighted to announce the launch of the Cochrane-Wikipedia Initiative pages on Wikimedia as the go-to place for all Cochrane-Wikipedia projects and related resources.…
Cochrane contributor Matthew Page, working with an international team of research colleagues, has recently completed an examination of the current quality and quantity of systematic reviews being published. A report of the study published in the online journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine on 24 May, and Cochrane Senior Editor Toby…
Targeted Update team (L to R): Nuala Livingstone, Rachel Churchill, Hanna Bergman, Charlotte Pestridge, Giulia Boselli, Karla Soares-Weiser. (Not pictured: Rachel Marshall).
What is the Targeted Update Project?
Supported by the Cochrane Steering Group, this pilot project was conducted jointly by the Cochrane Editorial Unit and Cochrane…
Tracey Perez Koehlmoos is Director of the Health Services Administration Division and Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine & Biostatistics at the US Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. She is also a Cochrane Review author, member of the Cochrane Library Oversight Commitee, and contributor to the work…
Today marks a new chapter in the Cochrane Embase project with the launch of the beta version of Cochrane Crowd. The Cochrane Embase project has been a huge success. To date, some 2,414 contributors have screened 304,499 records and identified 22,448 reports of randomized trials, with 99% sensitivity and specificity based on the latest evaluation.…
This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Professor Rhoda Redulla, a significant contributor to Cochrane Nursing Care.
Professor Rhoda Redulla has been an active member of the Cochrane Nursing Care Field (CNCF) for several years and has prepared numerous Cochrane Review Summaries that have been published in many highly regarded…
Susi Wisniewski is former Managing Editor of the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group and Programme Manager for Cochrane Screening and Diagnostic Tests Methods Group. She remains involved with Cochrane as an author, particularly on Diagnostic Test Accuracy reviews. Since leaving her full-time role within Cochrane, Susi has launched a…
It was a pleasure to see and work with many of you at the mid-year business meetings in London from 4-5 April, which were followed by three days of Cochrane Steering Group (CSG) meetings. My impression is that we will look back on those meetings in London as some of the most significant in Cochrane’s history, when the organization’s…
Through interviews and surveys conducted for Production Models, as part of Project Transform, it is clear that the Cochrane Community cares deeply and passionately about how Cochrane Reviews are produced. We care because we want to see it done well, and we want to see it done better. Tari Turner, from Project Transform, tells us more about …
This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Natalie Bradford PhD, MPH, BNurs, RN, Queensland Youth Cancer Service, Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane, Australia.
The Cochrane Nursing Care Field (CNCF) continues to expend the number of summaries produced within its collaboration of international nursing journals and widen its…
Andrea Cervera is a translator and Communications Manager at Cochrane Iberoamerica. Here she explains her experience of translating and publishing blogshots from Cochrane UK and their impact on social media. This follows the recent blog post from Sarah Chapman, Cochrane UK, on how groups can create blogshots.
We at Cochrane Iberoamerica…
Sarah Chapman is a knowledge broker at Cochrane UK. She writes and edits their weekly blog, Evidently Cochrane, and helps to shares Cochrane evidence across social media platforms.
It’s nine months since we started experimenting with blogshots as a way to share evidence. You can read more about how we developed them in this blog post: http://www…
Dr Ray Moynihan is Senior Research Fellow at Bond University and co-chair of the scientific committee for the international Preventing Overdiagnosis conference taking place in Barcelona in September 2016. In this blog post he invites you to Barcelona, and explores the growing interest within Cochrane in tackling the problem of too much medicine –…
Alain Amstutz, Elina Christes, Jérémy Glasner, Alen Hascic, and Patrick Schmitt attended the last Cochrane Colloquium. They shared information about Cochrane and their experience in the National Journal of Swiss Medical Students recently. This journal is distributed in all six medical faculties of Switzerland at the beginning of the…
Reposted, with permission, from Cochrane Canada. Cochrane Canada’s Knowledge Broker, Eileen Vilis, shares more about her recent presentation to students and offers tips to other Cochrane groups.
Cochrane Canada was again invited to speak to the dental hygiene students and staff at the Canadian National Institute of Health in Ottawa…
‘Cochrane Kompakt,’ the German translation project, is a joint effort between Cochrane Germany, Cochrane Austria, and Cochrane Switzerland. Cordula Braun, from the Department of Physiotherapy at hochschule 21 in Germany, gave a presentation on a collaboration between German physiotherapists and the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group to…
Reposted, with permission, from Cochrane Methods.
It was with deep sadness that the Cochrane Adverse Effects Methods Group said goodbye to Andrew Herxheimer, a founding member of The Cochrane Collaboration and the Adverse Effects Methods Group.
If it had not been for Andrew, the Adverse Effects Methods Group would never have existed.…
This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Professor Joan Webster; a prolific author, intrepid adventurer, and much loved mentor to many.
Cross-posted, with permission, from Cochrane Australia.
Conduct a trusty Google search on Professor Joan Webster and there among the myriad of journal articles, research papers, and academic…
Guest blog by Hywel Williams
A new Cochrane Library Special Collection brings together recent Cochrane Reviews on allergy. In this guest blog, Hywel Williams, Co-ordinating Editor of the Cochrane Skin Group, looks in more detail at some of the reviews relating to skin disorders.
There is plenty of interesting information for…
Peter C. Gøtzsche, director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, shares his experience of being on the Cochrane Board after returning from the GES. I have participated in two face-to-face Board meetings. This work has been much more interesting than I thought it would be. If you walk down the Grand Canyon, you will see how beautiful it is, but if…
Hanna Martikainen conducts PhD research at Paris Diderot University on the French-language translation of Cochrane Systematic Review abstracts. Having previously worked as a translation coordinator and post-editor for Cochrane France, she now teaches a class in post-editing medical LSP at the Department of Cross-Cultural Studies and Applied…
When it comes to health decisions, we want them to be informed by trustworthy, rigorous and reliable evidence. The current gold standard in providing this evidence are Cochrane Reviews, but with false and sensationalized information surrounding us how do we ensure that they remain trustworthy, efficient and sustainable? Here to explore this issue…
Heather Bagley (COMET), Sarah Gorst (MRC Hub for Trials Methodology Research), Richard Morley (Cochrane) Bridget Young (COMET) explore how patient-imporant outcomes could be identified for Cochrane Reviews. An enthusiastic group of healthcare consumers, Cochrane authors, and researchers joined a workshop jointly run by Richard Morley…
Julie Wood is Head of Cochrane's Communications and External Affairs team, as well as Co-chair of the newly formed Knowledge Translation Advisory Group. Here she provides an update on the development of Cochrane's Knowledge Translation Framework, and outlines next steps for Cochrane contributors to get involved with implementation. Cochrane has…
The Targeted Updates project aims to provide policy-makers, in particular guideline developers, with up-to-date information from Cochrane Reviews, tailored to their needs and working to a fast timeline. Targeted Updates use Cochrane Reviews as their foundation, but focus on updating selected comparisons and outcomes, working in close consultation…
Cochrane Reviews are systematic reviews of research in health care and policy, and are internationally recognized as a high-quality source of evidence for decision-making. They collate and summarize all the best available research evidence on the effects of healthcare interventions or the accuracy of diagnostic tests into a systematic review.…
A new chapter for Cochrane As an evidence-producing and knowledge-diffusing organization Cochrane’s past, present, and future success is built on the quality of the people it attracts and retains. We are so proud of the tens of thousands of volunteers who work for us because we know that what we do and the impact for good that we have as an…
Reposted, with permission, from Cochrane Australia. Last month Cochrane Australia Research Fellow Annie Synnot and Senior Research Fellow Julian Elliott took living systematic reviews on the road in something of a whirlwind tour of the United States and Canada. Here Annie shares some of the highlights, including a timely visit to the US…
Dear Colleagues, Cochrane’s Editor in Chief, David Tovey, wrote to you last on 20 April following a highly successful meeting of the Co-ordinating Editors (Co-Eds) Board and consultations with Managing Editors, Information Specialists, and the Methods community in Geneva. Participants at this meeting discussed proposed Cochrane Review Group (CRG…
David Tovey is the Editor in Chief of the Cochrane Library, and has been working with the Cochrane Editorial Unit (CEU) and the wider Cochrane collaboration in this role since 2009. In this post, he discusses Cochrane's conflict of interest policy and recent calls for re-assessment of its application in the conduct of Cochrane Reviews. This blog…
Sylvia de Haan is Cochrane's Partnerships Co-ordinator, and blogs periodically about work with our partners. You can read more in her previous blogs about engagement with the WHO, as well our partnership with Wikipedia. The World Health Organization (WHO) is Cochrane's largest external partner, and one of our oldest, with whom we have been in…
Cochrane Mexico has launched an initiative to bring Cochrane Reviews into daily practice, in order to promote informed decision making. Dr. Giordano Pérez-Gaxiola, of Cochrane Mexico and The Pediatric Hospital of Sinaloa, who is leading the initiative, explains more below. How did the idea arise? For a while, we had been thinking about how to…
Every year Cochrane recognizes the outstanding work of Kenneth Warren, a scientist, extremely influential in drawing attention to the 'great neglected diseases' that plague people in developing countries. He prioritized the need for valid summaries of key research studies and to the way electronic media could be used to disseminate results of…
Reposted with permission from Evidently Cochrane This blog by Sarah Chapman @SarahChapman30 reflects on how Cochrane UK shared Cochrane evidence on replacement of peripheral venous catheters. The blog was first published as an example of using social media to share research on the website of The HARTS of the possible project, which is…
How can we make it easier for health practitioners to access current evidence to inform treatments? One of Cochrane’s responses has been Cochrane Crowd, a platform that enables anyone with an interest in health to dive into tasks that help identify and describe health research. Cochrane Crowd is making it easier for health researchers to find the…
2017 sees Cochrane enter its fourth year of Strategy to 2020, which aims to put Cochrane evidence at the heart of health decision-making all over the world. Cochrane’s focus during 2016 has been on the delivery of mission critical initiatives, many of which will begin widespread implementation in 2017. These include changes to the…
In March 2017, members of Cochrane Croatia, led by Irena Zakarija-Grković, recorded their first podcasts in Croatian. In 2016, Irena received a small grant from the Croatian Ministry of Science for the ‘Popularization of Science’, and what better way to do that than by translating and recording Cochrane Podcasts! First, Hayley Hassan, from the…
Working together to create health evidence & transform biomedical discovery Got a burning passion for health? Ready to make a difference? We’ve got you covered. Join Cochrane Crowd, our partner Mark2Cure and our collective global volunteer network for an online MedLit Blitz, 9-12 May. Together we will create health evidence and transform…
TaskExchange makes life easy for review authors Elizabeth Clearfield is a regular task poster on TaskExchange, Cochrane’s online platform that connects people needing help with their systematic review, with people who have the time and skills to help. Elizabeth sat down recently for a chat with Emily Steele, Community Engagement and Partnerships…
To complement the papers for the Governing Board, we are publishing a report from the Cochrane Editorial Unit (CEU) about our activities over the past 12 months. It has been a challenging period for many reasons, but the recent UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) report strongly endorses our Strategy to 2020, and in particular goals 1…
The Targeted Updates project aims to provide policy-makers, in particular guideline developers, with up-to-date information from Cochrane Reviews, tailored to their needs and working to a fast timeline. Targeted Updates use Cochrane Reviews as their foundation, but focus on updating selected comparisons and outcomes, working in close consultation…
Dario Sambunjak and Chris Watts have been working with Cochrane’s Learning and Support team (L&SD) as Learning & Support Officers since May 2015. In this post they share information about a new training resource that L&SD has recently developed, working closely with the Cochrane Editorial Unit (CEU), to help Cochrane Editors avoid…
Cochrane Malaysia has just issued certificates of recognition to reward five translators and editors for their outstanding contribution to the Malay translation project in 2016. Dr. Teguh Haryo Sasongko, project manager of the Malay translation project, explains how annual certificates are motivating their volunteers. Could you tell us more about…
Sylvia de Haan is Cochrane's Partnerships Coordinator. She focuses on building and maintaining Cochrane’s external partnerships, including with Wikipedia. This blog tells about the experience of a small pilot project aimed at engaging volunteers in editing Wikipedia articles using Cochrane (and other) content. Wikipedia's health content was made…
It’s been a year since the ‘What are systematic reviews’ video was published on Cochrane.org. It was prepared by the Cochrane Consumers and Communication, La Trobe University and generously support by Cochrane Australia. The video has 28 thousand views and counting and the resources have been included in Wikipedia. Jack Nunn from Cochrane…
The Cochrane Gynaecological, Neuro-oncology and Orphan Cancers Group (CGNOC) has previously undertaken several prioritization exercises. In 2007, the Cochrane Gynaecological Cancer Group (as it was known then) worked with NHS Gynaecological Cancer Network, a range of professional bodies including the British Gynaecological Cancer Society (BGCS)…
Sarah Chapman is a knowledge broker at Cochrane UK. She writes and edits their weekly blog, Evidently Cochrane, and helps to shares Cochrane evidence across social media platforms. Jack Leahy manages Cochrane UK's digital presence, monitors impact, and helps develop new ways of sharing Cochrane evidence. You may have noticed 'vlogshots…
Since joining the French volunteer translation project last year, Martin Vuillème has made it a priority to regularly translate Cochrane abstracts and plain language summaries. After sharing his experience as a Cochrane volunteer translator with us in comic strip format, we invited him to write a blog post to tell his story. Here he explains the…
Every year Cochrane recognizes the outstanding work of Thomas C Chalmers, famous for his role in the development of the randomized controlled trial and meta-analysis in medical research. Thomas is perhaps best known for the notion ‘randomize the first patient’, his belief that it is more ethical to randomize patients than to treat them in the…
This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority setting case study page. The Cochrane Incontinence Group (CIG) were one of the first Groups to use the James Lind Alliance (JLA) Priority Setting Partnership model almost eight years ago. This approach…
Luis Eduardo Fontes is a physician, specializing in intensive care and gastroenterology, and a Professor of Medicine at Petrópolis Medical School. He is also one of the five Affiliate Directors of the Cochrane Brazilian Network, launched in 2016, and here explains about his exciting new role, and experience hosting the first Cochrane Symposium in…
Being able to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) is a critical part of most Cochrane Reviews that evaluate the effects of health treatments. In May last year Cochrane launched Cochrane Crowd. This platform enables anyone with an interest in health to dive into tasks that help identify and describe health research. By late December 2016…
Xun Li coordinates the Simplified Chinese translation project. Here she tells us about an initiative to incorporate the translation of Cochrane abstracts and Plain Language Summaries into medical English courses at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (BUCM). How did the initiative begin? The idea of making the translation of Cochrane…
Richard Morley is Cochrane's Consumer Co-ordinator. Cross-posted, with permission, from the Cochrane Consumer Network site. In 2015 the Cochrane Consumer Network took a hard look at the state of consumer involvement in Cochrane and found much to celebrate: a long history of consumer involvement, going back to the start of Cochrane a network…
This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority setting case study page. Until recently Cochrane Heart worked mainly with expert clinicians in an internal prioritization activity. For example, between May and August 2016 the group assessed and…
Howard White is the CEO of the Campbell Collaboration. Cross-posted, with permission, from the Campbell Blog. The National Institute for Clinical Evidence (NICE) has produced new consultation guidance on ‘Air pollution - outdoor air quality and health’. Not very newsworthy you might think. Well you’d be wrong. The Telegraph (UK) ran the story on…
This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority setting case study page. The Cochrane Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Group moved to Bogota, Colombia in 2012, where it is now part of the School of Medicine at the Universidad Nacional de…
An estimated $170 billion of research funding is wasted each year because its outcomes cannot be used [1]. The waste occurs during 5 stages of research production: question selection, study design, research conduct, publication, and reporting [2,3]. Much of this waste appears to be avoidable or remediable, but there are few proposed solutions.…
Cochrane CEO Mark Wilson, provides a recap of events from the Colloquium and what we have to look forward to. Dear Colleagues, It’s three weeks since the close of our 2016 Cochrane Colloquium held in the vibrant city of Seoul, South Korea, and therefore a good time to draw breath after the frenetic activity that took place there to assess the…
The Targeted Updates project aims to provide policy-makers, in particular guideline developers, with up-to-date information from Cochrane Reviews, tailored to their needs and working to a fast timeline. Targeted Updates use Cochrane Reviews as their foundation, but focus on updating selected comparisons and outcomes, working in close consultation…
Taryn Young, Senior Specialist Scientist from Cochrane South Africa, shares news of a recent workshop in Cape Town. How do you develop a diagram to show how HIV testing could reduce HIV transmission? Or how providing communities with latrines could reduce the number of children with diarrhoea? If you want to know, then you should have come…
This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority settings page. The Cochrane Consumers and Communication Review Group (CCRG) had a few goals in mind when they embarked on a recent prioritization exercise. They wanted to make sure their portfolio…
Cochrane Brazil manages a team of volunteer translators who work on systematic review abstracts and Plain Language Summaries. Part of this process involves editing and ensuring the quality of the Portuguese translations produced before they are published. Due to the popularity of WhatsApp in the country, Patricia Logullo, translation editor at…
Taking a closer look at how we store blogshots and user engagement with them on twitter. Muriah Umoquit, Internal Communications and Content Officer with Cochrane’s Communications & External Affairs Department, spent the last quarter looking at the newest Cochrane dissemination product, blogshots. Here she shares the results: We have…
This is part of a series of Cochrane case studies about prioritization work by Cochrane Review Groups. You can read more by visiting the priority setting case study page. The Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group (CTAG) has a longstanding commitment to prioritization, largely through informal discussions at the editorial base and by monitoring…
This week is Peer Review Week, a global event to celebrate and debate peer review. This is the second year the event has taken place and it has expanded to involve over 20 organizations with an interest in peer review. You can read more on the Peer Review Week website and by following #PeerRevWk16 on Twitter. This year's theme is Recognition for…
Angéline Serre has joined the Cochrane Communication and External Affairs Department (CEAD) in September 2015 with the aim of stimulating and accompanying the participation of Cochrane teams in European funding programs. She has a background in health research (PhD in neurosciences) and an expertise in developing applications for EU calls for…
Salomé Planas is the Spanish translation coordinator for Cochrane Iberoamérica and has been involved with Cochrane since 1998. Here she reflects on her experience and the changes she has seen during the last 18 years, as well as explaining why she is proud to be part of Cochrane. How did you first get involved with Cochrane? "I got involved in…
Cochrane Russia has had great success translating and recording podcasts at Kazan Federal University. The initiative involves students, medical residents, and others interested in Cochrane evidence, and is le by Liliya Eugenevna Ziganshina, Director of Cochrane Russia, and Head of the Department of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology at Kazan Federal…
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Complex Reviews Support Unit provides timely and appropriate support for the delivery of complex reviews that are funded and/or supported by NIHR - including Cochrane Reviews! Project Manager of the unit, Mora Aitken, answers a few questions to introduce the unit more widely to the Cochrane…
Cochrane’s translation strategy, established in 2014, is aimed at strengthening impact in non-English speaking countries. More than 2,500 translations of Cochrane Review summaries have been published in the first half of 2016 alone. Hayley Hassan, Cochrane’s Translations Support Officer, offers an insight into the impressive work of Cochrane’s…
Dario Sambunjak is a Learning & Support Officer at the Cochrane Central Executive and acts as the secretary to the recently established Cochrane Equity & Diversity Task Force. In this blog post, he discusses the first and last principles – “alpha and omega” - underpinning Cochrane’s work and invites Cochrane contributors to join in the…
You may have noticed that the Altmetric ‘doughnut’ is now included at the start of every Cochrane Review and Protocol. But what does it mean? Working with Gavin Stewart, Cochrane Editor for our publishing partner Wiley, we’ve come up with all you need to know, including how authors, Managing Editors, and Review Groups can make the most of it.…
Jack Leahy is an Engagement Officer with Cochrane UK. Jack curates the new Cochrane Tumblr account, where the popular Cochrane blogshots are shared. These blogshots summarize a Cochrane Review with a visual and are easy to share and consume on social media – a perfect fit for the miroblogging platform that is Tumblr! If you follow any of the…
It’s now two months since we launched Cochrane’s new citizen science platform, Cochrane Crowd, so it’s time celebrate our achievements and share the exciting plans for the months ahead. Firstly a big thank you to our existing Embase screening project crowd for coming along on this transition with us and giving such helpful feedback on the early…
The World Health Assembly is an important meeting for Cochrane and our partnerships. Here Sylvia de Haan, Partnership Coordinator for Cochrane, discusses what it is, our involvement thus far, and plans on making the most of our attendance. Once a year the World Health Assembly (WHA) brings together 3,000 people representing 194 member states and…
David Roberts, a public health registrar with Cochrane UK, recently helped with a Cochrane stand at a Public Health conference. Here he shares a bit about the experience and gives tips for other groups sharing Cochrane Evidence. The Faculty of Public Health Annual Conference was held in June in Brigton, East Sussex, UK. Representatives of…
The Cochrane Editorial Unit (CEU) has been undertaking pre-publication screening of Cochrane Reviews since 2013. In that time a team of editors from the CEU has assessed hundreds of submissions, and has not only identified areas for improvement within individual reviews, but also extracted and gathered data to help improve production practices…
This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Dr. Jimee Hwang, a significant contributor to the work of Cochrane Infectious Diseases, with an interview. This article is one in the "Meet the Editor" series produced by the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Groups, you can read more in the series here. Could you describe where you…
The Targeted Updates project aims to provide policy-makers, in particular guideline developers, with up-to-date information from Cochrane Reviews, tailored to their needs and working to a fast timeline. Targeted Updates use Cochrane Reviews as their foundation, but focus on updating selected comparisons and outcomes, working in close…
Maja Boban recently used TaskExchange to get some help with her Cochrane review, and we thought you might like to hear how it worked out. Maja is a psychologist and a Senior Advisor in HTA at the Agency for Quality and Accreditation in Health Care and Social Welfare in Croatia. Hi Maja! Maja was working on a review of multimedia-delivered…
The Cochrane-Wikipedia partnership started in 2014 with the aim of improving the evidence base of Wikipedia articles using Cochrane Reviews and other relevant evidence. We are delighted to announce the launch of the Cochrane-Wikipedia Initiative pages on Wikimedia as the go-to place for all Cochrane-Wikipedia projects and related resources.…
Cochrane contributor Matthew Page, working with an international team of research colleagues, has recently completed an examination of the current quality and quantity of systematic reviews being published. A report of the study published in the online journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine on 24 May, and Cochrane Senior Editor Toby…
Targeted Update team (L to R): Nuala Livingstone, Rachel Churchill, Hanna Bergman, Charlotte Pestridge, Giulia Boselli, Karla Soares-Weiser. (Not pictured: Rachel Marshall). What is the Targeted Update Project? Supported by the Cochrane Steering Group, this pilot project was conducted jointly by the Cochrane Editorial Unit and Cochrane…
Tracey Perez Koehlmoos is Director of the Health Services Administration Division and Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine & Biostatistics at the US Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. She is also a Cochrane Review author, member of the Cochrane Library Oversight Commitee, and contributor to the work…
Today marks a new chapter in the Cochrane Embase project with the launch of the beta version of Cochrane Crowd. The Cochrane Embase project has been a huge success. To date, some 2,414 contributors have screened 304,499 records and identified 22,448 reports of randomized trials, with 99% sensitivity and specificity based on the latest evaluation.…
This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Professor Rhoda Redulla, a significant contributor to Cochrane Nursing Care. Professor Rhoda Redulla has been an active member of the Cochrane Nursing Care Field (CNCF) for several years and has prepared numerous Cochrane Review Summaries that have been published in many highly regarded…
Susi Wisniewski is former Managing Editor of the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group and Programme Manager for Cochrane Screening and Diagnostic Tests Methods Group. She remains involved with Cochrane as an author, particularly on Diagnostic Test Accuracy reviews. Since leaving her full-time role within Cochrane, Susi has launched a…
It was a pleasure to see and work with many of you at the mid-year business meetings in London from 4-5 April, which were followed by three days of Cochrane Steering Group (CSG) meetings. My impression is that we will look back on those meetings in London as some of the most significant in Cochrane’s history, when the organization’s…
Through interviews and surveys conducted for Production Models, as part of Project Transform, it is clear that the Cochrane Community cares deeply and passionately about how Cochrane Reviews are produced. We care because we want to see it done well, and we want to see it done better. Tari Turner, from Project Transform, tells us more about …
This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Natalie Bradford PhD, MPH, BNurs, RN, Queensland Youth Cancer Service, Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. The Cochrane Nursing Care Field (CNCF) continues to expend the number of summaries produced within its collaboration of international nursing journals and widen its…
Andrea Cervera is a translator and Communications Manager at Cochrane Iberoamerica. Here she explains her experience of translating and publishing blogshots from Cochrane UK and their impact on social media. This follows the recent blog post from Sarah Chapman, Cochrane UK, on how groups can create blogshots. We at Cochrane Iberoamerica…
Sarah Chapman is a knowledge broker at Cochrane UK. She writes and edits their weekly blog, Evidently Cochrane, and helps to shares Cochrane evidence across social media platforms. It’s nine months since we started experimenting with blogshots as a way to share evidence. You can read more about how we developed them in this blog post: http://www…
Dr Ray Moynihan is Senior Research Fellow at Bond University and co-chair of the scientific committee for the international Preventing Overdiagnosis conference taking place in Barcelona in September 2016. In this blog post he invites you to Barcelona, and explores the growing interest within Cochrane in tackling the problem of too much medicine –…
Alain Amstutz, Elina Christes, Jérémy Glasner, Alen Hascic, and Patrick Schmitt attended the last Cochrane Colloquium. They shared information about Cochrane and their experience in the National Journal of Swiss Medical Students recently. This journal is distributed in all six medical faculties of Switzerland at the beginning of the…
Reposted, with permission, from Cochrane Canada. Cochrane Canada’s Knowledge Broker, Eileen Vilis, shares more about her recent presentation to students and offers tips to other Cochrane groups. Cochrane Canada was again invited to speak to the dental hygiene students and staff at the Canadian National Institute of Health in Ottawa…
‘Cochrane Kompakt,’ the German translation project, is a joint effort between Cochrane Germany, Cochrane Austria, and Cochrane Switzerland. Cordula Braun, from the Department of Physiotherapy at hochschule 21 in Germany, gave a presentation on a collaboration between German physiotherapists and the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group to…
Reposted, with permission, from Cochrane Methods. It was with deep sadness that the Cochrane Adverse Effects Methods Group said goodbye to Andrew Herxheimer, a founding member of The Cochrane Collaboration and the Adverse Effects Methods Group. If it had not been for Andrew, the Adverse Effects Methods Group would never have existed.…
This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Professor Joan Webster; a prolific author, intrepid adventurer, and much loved mentor to many. Cross-posted, with permission, from Cochrane Australia. Conduct a trusty Google search on Professor Joan Webster and there among the myriad of journal articles, research papers, and academic…