Why Use health-evidence.ca

How this site will save you time

This site will save you time by addressing two major barriers identified by public health and health promotion decision makers: 1) identifying public health/health promotion literature in large medical databases such as MEDLINE, and 2) accessing well-done reviews synthesizing the literature evaluating the effectiveness of numerous public health and health promotion interventions. Below, the features of the site that make it a time-saver are highlighted:

Public health content filtered for you from the literature and stored in a searchable registry: In a previous study of public health and health promotion decision makers we learned that there are great demands on decision makers’ time, making it necessary for them to quickly screen out non-relevant material. Using the registry, decision makers have quick access to material in their topic area (future updates to be provided will be topic-specific and well-organized with headings). You can easily view an abstract to a review reference and if you decide you need more info, you can view a summary statement. A summary statement provides an overview of the review content, comments on its quality, briefly identifies the evidence (in a clearly laid out table), and outlines associated policy and practice implications (view summary statement template). At the current time, summary statements are only available for selected reviews, which are indicated by a pdf icon in the Attached Resources section of the reference. The research team is working to find funding and appropriate authors to complete the remaining summary statements. Full reviews have been located and are linked wherever access is possible through the public domain. Free-text links have been added to articles that are from open sources. Direct links have been provided through IP authentication wherever a user may already have access through an existing subscription that is linked to the IP address of their workstation or home computer. Users who have access to The Cochrane Library through an OVID subscription will be able click the provided direct links.

Content that has been quality rated: We use a comprehensive search strategy to locate reviews (view search strategy). So you can be confident that reviews published in your area are included in the registry. We test all reviews for relevance to public health and health promotion (view relevance tool), and keyword them using common public health and health promotion terms (view keyword tool). Reviews in this registry have already been screened for relevance and tagged so that they will be much easier for you to locate than searching each of the bibliographic databases (e.g., MEDLINE) yourself. As well as locating reviews, we appraise them for methodological quality, saving you the time it takes to quality assess the reviews yourself so that you can make a judgment about whether or not to use them. You can view our quality assessment tool, which is used to give each review a quality rating of weak, moderate, or strong. When you search, you are able to view the quality ratings and you can also sort your search results by these ratings, making it easier to use strong or moderate quality evidence in favour of evidence that is weak in quality.

Design informed by public health decision makers across Canada: The summary statement template is based on findings from individual interviews with 54 Canadian decision makers. The resulting document was evaluated by decision makers who participated in 9 focus groups held across Canada. Based on their feedback, the document was refined to best meet the needs and preferences of decision makers. For a summary of the first research project, Strategies for Disseminating Systematic Reviews, and for more information on how this site got started go to our Project History page.

Evidence and implications, clearly spelled out in 2 pages: Some of the reviews listed in the registry are very long and can be 50 pages or more. A summary statement gives you the information that you need in order to determine if it is worth your while to retrieve the full document. At the current time, summary statements are only available for selected reviews, indicated by a pdf icon in the ‘Attached Resources’ section of the reference. The research team is working to find funding and appropriate authors to complete additional summary statements.

Building networks with colleagues in your program area: We are planning to provide a discussion group that you can use as a forum to connect with decision makers across Canada. We hope that by making these links with colleagues in your program/policy area, you will be able to avoid duplication of work. It is our job to encourage use of the discussion groups, and we have plans in place to ensure that there is adequate traffic at the site to promote active, constructive discussions and provide timely responses to users' questions and comments. We have been working to develop a schematic of who is working where in public health across Canada, and we would like to see links made between people working in common areas. We would love to hear your ideas about ways for creating and maintaining those linkages. You can forward your ideas to Heather Husson, Project Manager of health-evidence.ca at info@health-evidence.ca.

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