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Abstract
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The problem
Systematic reviews are becoming increasingly important for policy-makers making decisions about health (Lavis et al., 2006; Petticrew et al., 2004; Welch et al., 2012). The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”(WHO, 2017). Systematic reviews offer many potential benefits to policy-makers, including identifying interventions that are effective or not effective, are considered to have lower risk of bias than other studies, and offer more confidence in results than single studies (Lavis et al., 2006a). However, health policies are often made without the use of research evidence (Oxman et al., 2009). Barriers to the use of research, specifically systematic reviews, in policymaking have been identified (Oliver et al., 2014). Most systematic reviews are written using technical language, are too long, and lack the contextual information important for policy-makers and other users making decisions about how to use the evidence in their decision making (Lavis et al., 2005a; Rosenbaum et al., 2011; Sheldon, 2005). Strategies to promote the use of research evidence to policy-makers are required, and evidence summaries have been suggested as a facilitator to evidence-informed decision making (Bunn & Sworn, 2011).
The intervention
Systematic review summaries may be called evidence summaries, policy briefs, briefing papers, briefing notes, evidence briefs, abstracts, summary of findings, or plain language summaries (Adam et al., 2014). Within the Cochrane Collaboration, the Evidence Aid Project was developed in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami as a means of providing decision makers and health practitioners ‘on the ground’ with summaries of the best available evidence needed to respond to emergencies and natural disasters (Kayabu & Clarke, 2013).
In addition to Evidence Aid, there are many organizations that develop and disseminate evidence summaries for different populations or subsets of decision makers. For example, SUPPORT Summaries were developed for policy-makers in low- and middle-income countries making decisions about maternal and child health programs and interventions (www.support-collaboration.org). Health Systems Evidence provides policy briefs for policy-makers making health systems decisions (www.healthsystemsevidence.org/). Communicate to vaccinate (COMMVAC) is creating user friendly summaries to translate evidence on vaccination communication for policy makers and the community in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) (http://www.commvac.com). Rx for change is a searchable database for evidence about intervention strategies to alter behaviours of health technology prescribing, practice, and use (www.cadth.ca/resources/rx-for-change). Harvesting Evidence summarizes evidence on health systems and/or immunization for decision-making and implementation (http://www.harvesting-evidence.org). In fact, Lavis et al. identified 16 organizations involved in the production of summaries for policy makers in low- and middle-income countries (Adam et al., 2014) ...
Language: en |