Learn why effective risk communication in public health matters and where you can get started in learning how to better communicate research evidence.
Evidence gap maps (EGMs) are graphic representations of the available systematic reviews and ongoing research on relevant topics. Learn more, and test your understanding, in this blog for beginners to the topic.
Neuroscience is a complex world, strongly linked to other medical specialties or scientific fields. This article offers an example of how basic research could be fundamental to shape the future of medicine. This is the summary of a systematic review about using particular molecules like microRNAs as new biomarkers, to obtain a more accurate diagnosis in Mild Cognitive Impairment.
This new webpage from Cochrane UK is aimed at students of all ages. What is evidence-based practice? What is ‘best available research evidence’? Which resources will help you understand evidence and evidence-based practice, and search for evidence?
The MEDICS initiative aims to ensure a fundamental level of medical statistics and risk communication for medical students. Lathan Liou, founder of MEDICS, invites S4BE students to get involved.
When you see a claim that a treatment or intervention has no effect, it is important to examine the evidence as this may be a misleading statement.
This article explores circadian rhythm, the prevalence of its disruption in modern society, and its affects on cancer.
This month the media ran several stories about a study exploring the relationship between health and work-life balance. Are we working ourselves towards ill health?
Carrying out a systematic, unbiased, transparent and reliable literature search is vital in the first stages of your research. This blog provides tips and useful information on which resources can help guide you in this process.
This blog is a critical appraisal of a randomized controlled trial examining the effectiveness of different exercises and stretching physiotherapy on pain and movement in patellofemoral pain syndrome.
The EU Trials Tracker, devised by the EBM DataLab at the University of Oxford, tracks which trials on the European Union Clinical Trials Register (EUCTR) have reported their results within a year of completion. Learn more about this tracker and how you need to take action.
How accurately have the media reported on the link between dentures and frailty? This blog by Neelam Khan looks at the evidence behind the claim that “Dentures put wearers at risk of malnutrition because they can’t chew healthy food”.
This blog, written by Leonard Goh, was the winner of Cochrane Malaysia and Penang Medical College’s recent evidence-based medicine blog writing competition. Leonard has written an insightful and informative piece to answer the question: ‘Evidence-based health practice: a fairytale or reality’.
Cindy and Itzel provide us with a student perspective of their time at the Global Evidence Summit. It was the first meeting of Cochrane, the Campbell Collaboration, the Guidelines International Network (G-I-N), the International Society for Evidence-based Health Care and the Joanna Briggs Institute, which took place in September 2017. “…for our luck, it was our very first time attending a Colloquium. This event took place in the beautiful city of Cape Town, South Africa, the land of the first heart transplant”.
This blog follows on from Ammar’s previous post on meta-analysis, and provides further details on the history, value and implementation of this approach.
The Global Evidence Summit took place between 13th and 17th September 2017 in Cape Town, South Africa. The event saw over 1400 delegates from 77 countries gather to discuss how to use evidence to improve lives. Heidi Gardner (a PhD student in Applied Health Sciences) blogs on her thoughts, experience, tips and hope for the future after attending the Summit.
This blog is a critical appraisal of a systematic review exploring the benefits of early mobilisation following hip or knee replacement surgery.
This blog is a Portuguese translation of the blog ‘Meta-analysis: what, why and how’. Thanks to Cochrane Brazil for the translation.
This blog provides a basic overview of: 1) what a meta-analysis is; 2) why they’re considered the ‘gold standard’ of evidence; and 3) how a meta-analysis is carried out.
Cochrane UK’s Director, Martin Burton, introduces Cochrane UK’s new series Understanding Evidence, created in partnership with Students 4 Best Evidence, which kicks off today with a week of blogs.
Let’s figure out how the epidemiologists determine the diagnostic thresholds by studying the cases of anemia and type II diabetes.
Confused about Hazard Ratios and their confidence intervals? This blog provides a handy tutorial.
Here we will address the problem with cancer screening interventions regarding the potential benefits and harms of these strategies.
This article highlights the importance of the results of Cochrane’s new systematic review on the efficacy of Methylphenidate for ADHD in children and adolescents.
The ‘Health in the Media’ feature is back! Iodine deficiency has been linked to poor thyroid function and weight gain, but did the Daily Mail dish out helpful advice on where to find dietary iodine?
Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics is one of the few easily digestible statistics books that teaches anyone the most basic principles and concepts how to question and see the reality behind health news, hype, claims and ads.
In the third in our series of articles reviewing the health evidence tools produced by McMaster University, Mathura Mahendren looks at Health Systems Evidence, an information resource for people interested in public health policy.
Let’s be honest, Evidence-Based Medicine is great. But it’s not perfect. Issues such as the lack of publishing of negative results need to be understood and tackled. In this Youtube video, Prof David Nealy does just that.
In the first in our series of articles reviewing the health evidence tools produced by McMaster University, Mathura Mahendren gets to know the Optimum Aging Portal, a resource for communicating evidence-based ways of staying healthy in older age.
In his book, A Scientist in Wonderland, Edzard Ernst describes his life and career. He becomes a pioneer in researching alternative medicine, and as one would expect, makes plenty of enemies along the way.
Key message: Evidence Based Medicine is useful for informing healthcare professionals what works, what doesn’t, and helping to determine if the benefits outweigh the harms, but it’s far from perfect. There are valuable lessons learned about research that we can share across disciplines. What is the Evidence Based Medicine problem? In 2005, Dr. John Ioannidis, a well-known meta-researcher, published an article in PLoS Medicine called Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. This article caused a splash and has been making
In search of a book with simple, comprehensible definitions and examples of clinical evidence? Do you want to take the first step in understanding common terms in clinical evidence as well as commonly used methods and their pitfalls? This review will inform you if this is the book you’re looking for.
Sean reviews The Geek Manifesto by Mark Henderson, a book that asks what governments can learn from the success of Evidence-Based Medicine, how we can improve the public understanding of science and how we can entrench scientific thinking into other aspects of public life.
Danny has reviewed the US Cochrane Center’s online course that aims to help you understand the basics of evidence-based healthcare and why it’s important.
Sense about Science have a long-standing campaign encouraging people to #AskForEvidence and in their new Healthy Evidence forum, in partnership with NHS Choices, they ask patients and the general public to get involved!
Systematic reviews take a long time to produce, and are often not up to date. In PLOS Medicine last month, a ‘living systematic review’ was proposed, to reduce the gap between evidence and practice.
Physical therapy student Rachel, reviews an article looking at improving walking ability post-stroke.
A critical appraisal of an article investigating the applicability of High Intensity Exercise Training Programs (HIT) on patients in residential care facilities who have moderate-severe physical and cognitive impairments and who are dependent in at least one activity of daily living (ADL).
The Lancet has recently published a series of papers looking at problems with waste and inefficiency in research, with recommendations for how these could be overcome.
Kat’s article review discusses Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis a progressive disease involving degeneration of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord and what muscle exercises can help patients.
GATE (Graphic Approach To Evidence Based Medicine) is a simplified diagram that is used to explain any quantitative study; from an RCT to a cohort.
Sense About Science are partners with S4BE. Find out from their Campaigns & Policy Officer Chris, why we should all be asking for evidence.
David looks at some of the latest health stories in the media.
Evidence-based medicine is not just about applying a systematic review letter for letter – but the ‘art’ of evidence-based medicine is in applying the science.
Videos of the plenary talks from the recent Cochrane colloquium are available online. Alice has had a look at some of the key points raised in the first session.
PubMed Health – a good place to start your search for health-based evidence
An apple a day may not be enough to keep the doctor away, but half an hour of exercise really could. Find out why not enough is done to promote exercise as medicine despite the evidence.
Evidence Aid provides brief summaries of evidence to assist decision makers in disasters and other humanitarian emergencies.
PDQ-Evidence is a database specifically for finding evidence related to public health and health policy.
Systematic reviews aren’t cheap or quick – Alice looks at some suggestions from the blogs of Jon Brassey from TRIP and Mona Nasser from Cochrane.
A fantastic resource for easily getting hold of the best available evidence relating to your clinical speciality.
Abu discusses the evidence behind hypnosis.
David writes about the UK Government’s recent plans to introduce health checks.
“Preventive interventions for postnatal psychosis” is a systematic review published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in 2013. It aimed to investigate the best available evidence on interventions for preventing Postnatal Psychosis derived from all relevant randomized controlled trials.
Alice has revisited the cord clamping review, she blogged about a couple of months ago…
Want to find out how to evaluate a randomised controlled trial? This is the perfect resource for you, brought to you by CASP Tools.
Can probiotics prevent diarrhoea? A new Cochrane review says they can. This blog also walks through a few of the features of Cochrane reviews.
David takes a look at the evidence behind the good, bad and ugly of medical news in the media. Week 2- 13th June 2013
There’s a lot of evidence out there of varying quality. This slideshow looks at the uses of grading medical evidence, and how it can be done.
David takes a look at the evidence behind the good, bad and ugly of medical news in the media. Week 1-6th June 2013
Need something for your EBM task? Check out EBHC wiki!! You will find it there..
A must-have tutorial on how to critically appraise research.
This is an information skills tutorial that provides the opportunity for students to learn more about searching for information
A checklist to help you systematically appraise and understand diagnostic test studies.
AllTrials, putting the evidence back in evidence-based medicine.
PharmAware is a network of students committed to the use of the best evidence in healthcare.
A free, multilingual database. It includes systematic reviews, overviews of reviews (including evidence-based policy briefs), primary studies included in systematic reviews and structured summaries of that evidence.
This resource is a tutorial, providing a thorough introduction to Evidence-Based Practice (EBP). It describes in detail how to formulate specific questions when searching for evidence on a problem, how to find this evidence using online databases, and how to evaluate and appraise the evidence found. It also outlines the economic modelling and cost-assessments behind healthcare choices.
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