Programme
The theme of this year’s Colloquium is ‘Forward together for trusted evidence’; exploring the challenges for the future around trustworthiness of healthcare data and information whilst also celebrating 30 years of producing trusted evidence.
We’re delighted to bring you a varied programme of workshops, oral presentations, posters, Special Sessions and meetings. Content falls into four programme streams: 1) producing trusted evidence; 2) advocating for trusted evidence; 3) informing health and care decisions; 4) co-production and working together.
On this page, you can filter by session type and/or by subject category. You can also search by key phrases (to clear a search, click on the x by the right-hand side of the search bar).
Please note, the content below is subject to change.
Plenaries: These sessions bring together inspiring speakers offering different perspectives on key themes, through linked presentations and a panel discussion.
Special sessions: These sessions have been chosen for their innovative content and relevance to our theme “Forward together for trusted evidence”. Some are linked to plenaries, giving you an opportunity to explore the topics in greater depth.
Oral sessions: Sessions that group multiple oral presentations with a similar topic.
Skills lab: Sessions to help you develop skills and support your personal and professional development.
9:00 AM - 5:30 PM | Editorial Board Meeting (restricted) | Meeting | |
9:00 AM - 5:30 PM | Council Meeting (restricted) | Meeting | |
12:30 PM - 5:30 PM | Geographical Group Directors' Meeting | Meeting | Please find the agenda for the meeting here. |
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM | Consumer Meeting | Meeting | Are you a healthcare consumer (patient, carer, member of the public)? Come and join members of the Consumer Network Executive before the colloquium. Meet others like yourself, find out what support there is for you, discover interesting and relevant sessions, and ask any questions that you have. |
7:30 AM - 8:30 AM | Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods Editorial Board meeting - By Invitation Only | Meeting | A meeting of the Editorial Board of Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods to discuss the journal and future developments. |
7:30 AM - 8:45 AM | Cochrane Scholars Workshop for American Academy of Otolaryngology HNS - By Invitation Only | Meeting | This session, moderated by Martin Burton and Richard Rosenfeld, will orient Cochrane Scholars and staff from the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery to principles of systematic review and meta-analysis, and will prepare attendees to get the most out of the Colloquium. |
7:45 AM - 8:45 AM | Cochrane Thematic Groups - By Invitation Only | Meeting | This meeting will provide an opportunity for Thematic Groups leaders and members to discuss shared interests, opportunities for cross working and consider where collaboration around common interests could benefit all Thematic Groups. |
8:00 AM - 8:45 AM | Thomas Chalmers Award Committee - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Committee Members to meet and discuss onsite process. |
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM | Global health, equity and trust | Plenary | An important goal of global health is to advance health equity for all people worldwide. Trust in global health research, practice and policy is crucial for achieving this goal. In this plenary we start by examining the historical roots of mistrust in global health, citing examples of research abuses and barriers to the delivery of care in marginalised communities. This is followed by a discussion of challenges for evidence generation, synthesis and use encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, we shift our focus to the impact of the profit motive on trust and equity in health and offer guidance on the conduct of systematic reviews focussing on the commercial determinants of health. We conclude by providing recommendations for improving research integrity and building trust in global health research. Keynotes:
The session was chaired by Cochrane's Editor-in-Chief, Karla Soares-Weiser and Eva Madrid from Cochrane Chile.
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10:30 AM - 11:00 AM | Break | Coffee break | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Research integrity, transparency and fraud | Oral session | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Assessing evidence certainty | Oral session | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Global health, equity, diversity and inclusion | Oral session | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Network Meta-analysis | Oral session | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Mapping evidence | Oral session | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Beyond the intervention question: three new Cochrane Handbooks as the pillars of methodological standards for producing high-quality systematic reviews with different types of evidence | Special Session | Cochrane's vision is a world of better health for all people where decisions about health and care are informed by high-quality evidence. Since its inception, Cochrane has pioneered and developed systematic review methodology with highly structured, transparent and reproducible standards. Historically, Cochrane has concentrated on systematic reviews of interventions, with the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions being the leading guide for preparing and maintaining systematic reviews on the effects of healthcare interventions within Cochrane and globally. However, the health landscape has changed and given rise to complex challenges and a need for trusted health evidence to guide decision-making in areas beyond intervention research. To continue meeting the needs of the users of our research, it is essential for Cochrane to increase its capacity to address different research questions. To provide guidance on the methodological standards for producing high-quality systematic reviews with other types of evidence, Cochrane has expanded its Handbook collection to include the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy (complete and available to buy), the Cochrane-Campbell Handbook for Qualitative Evidence Synthesis (complete and available in draft), and the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Prognosis (in development with some chapters available in draft). These three new Cochrane Handbooks are led by the Cochrane Screening and Diagnostic Tests, Qualitative and Implementation, and Prognosis Methods Groups, respectively, and draw on the expertise of hundreds of contributing methodologists, researchers and editors worldwide. In this session, the Editors for each of the three new Cochrane Handbooks will introduce their Handbook and discuss methodological challenges that arise from these types of systematic reviews. In addition, they will highlight new developments in research methodologies and what they hope to achieve with the addition of these Handbooks to the collection of Cochrane guides that are available for authors, editors and the wider community. Target audience: Authors, editors, methodologists and anyone interested in different types of systematic reviews. Format: Lecture, panel discussion |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Forward together: new ways to participate in Cochrane | Workshop - discussion | Background: Cochrane has developed many new ways to get involved, which go beyond authoring reviews. These include Cochrane Crowd, Cochrane Engage, translations, and consumer engagement. These initiatives are part of Cochrane’s Membership Project that seeks to broaden our community by giving a wider range of people the opportunity to be part of Cochrane. In addition, developments and changes within Cochrane might open up lots of other new opportunities for people to participate. We seek to have an inclusive and diverse community, and so in this workshop we will discuss the impact and limitations of these existing options and consider additional ways in which the community can be involved. |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Research priority setting that inform or use systematic reviews | Workshop - discussion | Background: The Cochrane priority setting methods group has been working on developing guidelines and methods in this area and how it relates to the Cochrane Collaboration. There are a few areas that would be relevant to this conversation. These include the following: - conducting research priority setting exercises that inform prioritisation of topics for conducting or updating systematic reviews; - using systematic reviews on primary research on the topic as a source of information for stakeholders who participate in a research priority setting process; and - using systematic reviews of other research priority setting exercises to either replace a research priority setting exercise or inform one. |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Do's and Don'ts in the Rapid Review search: Find information faster without losing confidence in the results | Workshop - discussion | Background:
Evidence syntheses are key tools to support reliable, unbiased, and reproducible healthcare decisions. However, identifying, appraising, and synthesizing new evidence is often resource intensive. The Cochrane Rapid Review Methods Group (RRMG) investigates ways to meet growing demands within resource constraints by using rapid review (RR) evidence synthesis methods.
RR information retrieval methods aim to assist in accelerating the review process while still being systematic, transparent, and reproducible. Search processes may be abbreviated by 1) reducing time spent on conducting searches and 2) reducing the size of the search result. There are many ways to make searches more efficient, ranging from searching fewer sources to the application of limits, filters/hedges, and restrictions (e.g., publication dates, language, and precision-focused search strategies). But how do we decide which approach is appropriate for a particular topic or review goal?
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Better data extraction with Covidence and RevMan Web | Workshop - training | Background:
Cochrane review authors can now import completed data extractions and quality assessments (Risk of Bias) from Covidence into RevMan Web. When completed successfully, all the data collected in Covidence are added to the RevMan Web review, and authors are ready to proceed with setting up the analyses. This new workflow saves time and reduces the risk of error.
Careful preparation and formatting of the data will ensure successful import into RevMan Web. This workshop will explain the requirements of this workflow in detail; demonstrate the process; and
help reviewers to troubleshoot common problems.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Consumer Involvement 101: producing Cochrane evidence with consumers | Workshop - training | Background:
This workshop is for researchers and consumers who are interested in involving people in producing systematic reviews, and it aims to address the questions that people have, share the different possible methods, and explore the resources and support that are available. By the end of the session, participants will understand where to start their involvement journeys.
Cochrane is committed to the production of Cochrane Evidence with consumers in its new Consumer Engagement and Involvement Framework and by signing the Putting People First pledge to involve patients in health research. Currently, approximately 1 in 10 reviews have some form of consumer involvement in the authoring of reviews. Whilst most researchers and consumers support the principles of consumer involvement, there is still much uncertainty about methods for involving people in reviews.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Prepare for success! How to lead a review team and complete your review (or update) on time. | Workshop - training | Background:
An essential feature of performing Cochrane reviews is working well in a collaborative and interdisciplinary author team. Beyond the methodological aspects, logistical and management issues in the systematic review process can be rather challenging. Identifying and managing the different tasks required to complete a systematic review often falls on the lead author. Careful planning and effective communication within the team can reduce delays and ensure timely completion of tasks.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Introduction to analysis and meta-analysis of interrupted time series studies | Workshop - training | Background:
Interrupted Time Series (ITS) studies are commonly used to evaluate public health and policy interventions when randomisation is impractical or infeasible; for example, examining the effects of mass media campaigns on the use of methamphetamine among young adults. In an ITS study, measurements on a group of individuals (e.g., community) are taken repeatedly both before and after the intervention. The key benefit of the ITS design is that any secular trend in the period before the intervention can be accounted for when estimating the impact of the intervention. Several effect measures can be used to characterise both short- and long-term effects of the intervention (e.g., immediate level-change and long-term level-change). Meta-analysis of these effect estimates can usefully inform decision-making.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Impacts of climate change on health and health systems: Producing evidence syntheses to support decision-making | Workshop - training | Background The climate emergency is a pressing threat to human health and health systems. Members of the Cochrane community must bring our evidence synthesis expertise to the work of supporting effective decision making to adapt to or mitigate its impacts. Because of the multi-level and systemic challenge of this topic, relevant evidence is complex and heterogeneous. Synthesis of this evidence requires appropriate methods that incorporate interdisciplinary approaches. Objective To introduce participants to the knowledge and skills needed to conduct comprehensive and rigorous evidence syntheses on climate-health topics. Participants will gain an understanding of available relevant evidence synthesis methods and will be introduced to the skills needed to conduct their own syntheses. They will also have the opportunity to network with other researchers and practitioners working in the field. Description Overview of key concepts and terminology - Introduction to climate change and human health linkages - Adaptation and mitigation initiatives related to health and health systems Decisions related to conducting a review: - Framing the PICO question - Search strategies and selecting databases - Incorporating logic models/conceptual frameworks to link health and climate variables - Decisions about scope (lumping versus splitting) and levels of analysis - Addressing equity considerations - Establishing a review advisory board There will be facilitated small-group work sessions addressing specific issues for designing a protocol on a climate-health question. Participants can bring their own topics or work from sample topics provided by the facilitators. The workshop will conclude with a brief discussion of future methods needs for climate-health syntheses. |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | ROB-ME: a tool for assessing risk of non-reporting biases in systematic reviews with or without meta-analysis | Workshop - training | Background: Researchers’ decisions about whether, when, how, or where to report studies or results are often influenced by the P value, magnitude, or direction of the study results (‘non-reporting biases’). A consequence is bias in systematic reviews because the available evidence differs systematically from the missing evidence. Existing tools for assessing the risk of non-reporting biases are limited in terms of their scope, guidance for reaching risk of bias judgements, and measurement properties. |
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM | Lunch break and meetings | Lunch break | |
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM | Poster session 1 | Poster session | During this session the following posters will be presented:
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12:45 PM - 2:00 PM | Cochrane Hypertension - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Cochrane Hypertension Group staff, editors, authors (Vancouver base and Pamplona satellite) |
12:45 PM - 2:00 PM | Cochrane US Network Meeting 1 - By Invitation Only | Meeting | The first in-person meeting of the US Network - 1 of 2 Please find the agenda for this meeting below. |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Scandinavian GRADE Network | Meeting | The aims of this meeting are as follows: |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Cochrane Climate-Health Working Group | Meeting | The Cochrane Climate-Health Working Group was established in 2020. Members are committed to applying the tools of evidence synthesis and knowledge translation to supporting decision-makers in addressing the impacts of climate change on human health and health systems. The meeting will provide an overview of our current funded and unfunded projects. New group members are always welcome. |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Prognosis Methods Group / Cochrane Handbook for Prognosis Reviews - By Invitation Only | Meeting | |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Adverse Effects Methods Group | Meeting | Opportunity to meet 3 of the 4 co-convenors of the group and discuss the role and future directions of the group. We are keen to hear from anyone with an interest in harms. |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Sexual & Reproductive Health - Steering group - By Invitation Only | Meeting | A meeting for the steering group of this newly established thematic group |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Cochrane Africa contributors meeting | Meeting |
This will be an open meeting of the Cochrane Africa Network which aims to: 1. raise awareness about Cochrane Africa, 2. share the updated strategy for Cochrane Africa 3. gather ideas from the community for how contributors can collaborate with, and contribute to the network. A brief presentation about Cochrane Africa's new strategy will be followed by an open discussion about engaging more contributors in the Network's work. |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | PRISMA-QES Development meeting - By Invitation Only | Meeting | A meeting to further develop PRISMA-QES reporting guideline project involving members of Cochrane Qualitative Implementation and Methods Group. |
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | ICTRP: trial results display and search functionality | Meeting | This meeting is to discuss potential exciting new enhancements to the ICTRP meta register. The changes relate to displaying information regarding results availability for completed trials, and changes to the search interface to improve trial discovery. |
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Meet the CEO and Editor-in-Chief | Networking session | Cochrane's CEO Catherine Spencer and Editor-in-Chief Karla Soares-Weiser will be available for an informal opportunity to meet and answer your questions. Meet Catherine and Karla at the Cochrane Community Booth. |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Rapid reviews and other rapid evidence products 1 | Oral session | |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Capacity building in evidence synthesis | Oral session | |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Statistical methods | Oral session | |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Engaging stakeholders and building partnerships | Oral session | |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | How Cochrane responded to the need for timely, unbiased, informative and accurate evidence on new diagnostic tests during the Covid-19 pandemic | Special Session | In mid-March 2020, leaders in Cochrane put out a call for help to provide evidence to assist decision-making during the emerging pandemic. On 26th March 2020 we formed the Cochrane Covid Diagnostic Test Accuracy Group – an international group of methodologists, test accuracy specialists, statisticians, epidemiologists and clinicians committed to deliver a portfolio of reviews to provide and maintain a reliable evidence base on which test policies could be based. In the following days, Cochrane published two Cochrane Diagnostic Test Accuracy Protocols (on days 29 and 68), and five Cochrane Diagnostic Test Accuracy systematic reviews (on days 91, 103, 153, 189 and 239) reporting on the accuracy of antibody tests, signs and symptoms, rapid antigen and molecular tests, imaging tests, and routine laboratory tests. Since then, Cochrane has published eight updates of these reviews, and a further four reviews are close to being completed. To date, these five reviews have been cited 3375 times, and used in 22 international guidelines. Completing these reviews has involved: recruiting over 100 researchers on a voluntary basis from more than 14 countries across six continents; developing new methods to deal with the magnitude of papers, use of pre-prints and new data sources; adapting protocols as knowledge and understanding developed; identifying and engaging with stakeholders (including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) and the Cochrane Infectious Diseases group) to ensure the reviews were informative and addressed relevant questions; and developing working arrangements across Cochrane to enable timely publication, including rapid peer review, editorial support and fixing software challenges. Our approach exemplifies Cochrane's principles of collaboration, enthusiasm, avoiding duplication of effort, and minimizing bias whilst striving for clinical relevance, quality, open access and avoiding all conflicts of interest. This session will introduce the story of the team's approach and work. We will highlight the findings of the reviews, discuss the challenges and solutions we found in working in a new and moving area of health and technology, and discuss how we tried to make sure our findings had impact. We are keen to discuss our experience with the audience and the lessons we have learned. Target audience: Reviewers, methodologists, policymakers, funders, media, the public: all who are interested in seeing how an international team collaborates effectively and efficiently Format: Multiple short presentations followed by a panel discussion |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | The Commercial Determinants of Health and Evidence Synthesis (CODES): methodological guidance for systematic reviews | Special Session | The field of the Commercial Determinants of Health (CDOH) is growing rapidly, as evidenced by a new World Health Organization (WHO) programme on CDOH and increased researcher and funder interest. Evidence synthesis will be a crucial tool in the evolution of CDOH. While CDOH reviews can draw on existing methodological guidance, there are areas where the methods will differ, and there is no overarching guidance on the conduct of CDOH-focussed systematic reviews, nor on the specific methodological and conceptual challenges. CODES provides guidance on CDOH-focussed systematic reviews, from shaping the review question, through to disseminating the review. Existing methods guidance was used to identify key stages and provide a structure for the CODES guidance. The main objective of the session is to (i) present the guidance and initiate a discussion on its potential use and value to reviewers working in the field of CDOH, and (ii) to identify next steps for the development and implementation of CODES guidance. The session will be primarily focussed on discussion of the main steps of the CODES guidance: on the face validity of the guidance, on its likely acceptability to reviewers and how this can be enhanced. It will start with a short presentation on CDOH, and then a short structured exercise to identify participants’ views of where CDOH-related biases may enter the review process. The findings of this exercise will be considered in the context of the current version of the CODES guidance, to identify key topics for further discussion. The session will end with a short presentation on equity considerations and how these might be incorporated into CODES. This session will highlight the special methodological and other considerations for CDOH reviews, including equity considerations, and provide pointers to areas for future methodological and guideline development. More generally, CODES will contribute to the reliability and utility of CDOH reviews (in line with the Colloquium theme of “Producing Trusted Evidence") and will help stimulate the production of reviews which are less affected by commercial biases, and more likely to improve the health and wellbeing of patients and the wider public. A member of the public will help design the session. Target audience: Review authors Format: Discussion |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Putting evidence at the centre of everyday life | Workshop - discussion | Background: Citizens make many decisions each and every day. Some are personal decisions for themselves or their families, whereas others are decisions related to their community, their country, or the world.
In January 2022, the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges released a report.(1) Two recommendations in particular speak directly to the impact of evidence on citizens: 1) help citizens use evidence to inform both personal decisions and decisions related to their community, their country, and the world; and 2) address the spread of false, inaccurate, and misleading information (also called ‘misinformation’), which can lead to bad decisions and harmful consequences. These recommendations are in perfect alignment with Cochrane’s goals of producing trusted evidence, advocating for evidence, and informing healthcare decisions.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Assessing risk of bias in non-randomized studies of interventions: introduction to the ROBINS-I tool | Workshop - training | Background: Non-randomized studies of interventions (NRSI) can provide information about effects of interventions that is not available from randomized trials, but their results may be affected by confounding, selection and information biases. Assessing the risk of bias in NRSIs included in systematic reviews is essential to ensure the robustness of review findings. The ROBINS-I (Risk of Bias in Non-randomized Studies – of Interventions) tool (BMJ 2016;355:i4919), which provides a structured approach to such assessments, has been updated since its publication. |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | How to author, publish, and dynamically update digital and trustworthy living evidence summaries, guidelines, and decision aids using MAGICapp | Workshop - training | Background: There is an increasing emphasis on using living evidence to inform decision-making; however, creating living guidelines and decision aids is challenging. MAGICapp (www.magicapp.org) is an open-access software for evidence users, synthesizers, guideline developers, and proponents of shared decision-making to facilitate the creation, dissemination, and updating of trustworthy, digitally structured living evidence and clinical decision support tools. MAGICapp was designed with multiple stakeholders (healthcare providers, consumers, methodologists) while adhering to Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations (GRADE) guidance, with features that are continuously updated through research and innovation.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Introduction to meta-analysis 1: meta-analysis of binary and continuous outcomes | Workshop - training | Background: A core component of many systematic reviews is meta-analysis, which is a method for statistically combining results across studies. Meta-analysis results often underpin healthcare decision-making. Most commonly, meta-analysis of binary or continuous outcomes are undertaken. Many issues need to be considered when meta-analysing binary or continuous outcomes ranging from data extraction through to the selected meta-analysis method.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | First do no harm: how can systematic reviewers do justice to harms? Deciding which harms to search for and how | Workshop - training | Background: Any intervention that can have an effect has the potential to have an adverse effect. All systematic reviews of interventions should at least consider the harms of that intervention. Harms are important to patients, impacting on morbidity and mortality.
There are many differences (as well as similarities) in how researchers should approach a review question on harms, as opposed to a question on benefit. Formulating the question on harms is a challenging but key step in the review process. Review teams need to decide whether to focus on specific harms (and if so which ones) or whether to have a broader objective. Balancing the quest for an answerable, useful question with limited resources is difficult.
Searching for included studies on harms can also be problematic and often requires a different approach to searching for effectiveness studies. Obstacles include the lack of harm information in journal abstracts, inconsistent terminology and indexing, and the need to search a range of study designs beyond randomised controlled trials (RCTs).
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Mapping Reviews and Evidence Gap Maps: Evidence syntheses for broader health questions | Workshop - training | Background: Demand for evidence syntheses to inform health practice, policy, and research agendas has grown exponentially with methods evolving to address the increasingly diverse types of questions that patients, practitioners, and policymakers pose. Mapping reviews and evidence gap maps (EGMs) have emerged over recent years to answer broader research questions. They aim to identify gaps in existing evidence and guide future research. Typically, mapping reviews and EGMs have a visual output that can be interpreted by a wide range of key stakeholders, including patients. We will draw on our expertise undertaking EGMs across a diverse range of topics (including preterm birth, medicines repurposing and elder abuse) to illustrate their utility and method. Learning Outcomes: Workshop attendees will gain an awareness of mapping review and EGM method including when suitable for use; gain an awareness of stakeholder involvement and engagement in mapping reviews and EGMs; be able to create a framework for an EGM; and be able to create an EGM using EPPI-Mapper. Embedded signposting within handout materials will enable self-directed learning to a greater depth. |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Health Equity: Implications for Systematic Reviews | Workshop - training | Background: This is a core training session from a Cochrane Methods Group.
The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions includes a chapter on equity and specific populations. A Cochrane Interactive Learning module has been developed to accompany this chapter. This workshop aims to introduce all systematic reviewers to equity methods and provide tips for including equity considerations in all reviews.
Average results may obscure differences in outcomes across specific populations, who may experience health inequity. Systematic reviews can explore the robustness of findings across specific populations, who may experience health inequity. Equity is defined as the absence of avoidable differences in health outcomes.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Demystifying R Part 1: How to use Shiny apps in information retrieval | Workshop - training | Background:
Information specialists increasingly rely on software tools for information retrieval. Tools created with the coding language R are of particular interest because R is both free and open source. These tools can be easily customized and extended. In addition, it is relatively easy to create graphical user interfaces (GUI) for R packages (so-called Shiny apps), which are particularly useful for people without coding experience.
This is the first part of a two-part workshop. Part 2, submitted by Sarah Young, will present practical hands-on activities using R Coding and the RStudio coding environment.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Assessing the certainty of the evidence from network-meta analysis using the GRADE approach | Workshop - training | Background: Assessing the certainty of the evidence is among the Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews (MECIR) standards, and it is also acknowledged as a key step in non-Cochrane reviews. Appropriate interpretation of the results from network meta-analysis (NMA) requires considering the certainty of the evidence.
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3:30 PM - 4:00 PM | Break | Coffee break | |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Editorial processes and supporting review authors | Oral session | |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Engaging stakeholders, building capacity, developing partnerships | Oral session | |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Methodological and reporting quality | Oral session | |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Knowledge translation | Oral session | |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Non-randomised studies and mixed methods | Oral session | |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Living evidence – from concept to reality | Special Session | We need trusted, up-to-date guidelines to stimulate clinicians to change their practice and provide patients with the best care. This is vital in a world where mistrust has become the norm, from anything to the news, body image or fake science. Credible guidelines must be independent, based on reliable information and – critically and demonstrably – in line with the latest research. Turning this vision into reality is not straightforward. Timelines for identifying new research, evaluating data, reviewing and amending guideline recommendations typically stretch from months into years. A new collaboration, the Global Alliance of Living Evidence (GALE), is attempting to demonstrate how this can be done, drawing on recent successes during the pandemic. This Special Session will provide an opportunity to hear from leaders in the field and to use live voting to track audience opinions. The session will explore the potential for new technologies such as artificial intelligence to support the process, and to consider what this means for future Cochrane Reviews. Target audience: Anyone with an interest in living systematic reviews, in particular those keen to collaborate with others to develop the approach and share ideas. Format: There will be some initial presentations followed by a group discussion to explore challenges and identify potential solutions. |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Mind the gap! Building the evidence base for co-producing evidence synthesis | Special Session | Cochrane is committed to the co-production of its evidence. The proposed Co-production Methods Group will support this by spearheading methods research to establish best practice; supporting the development and sharing of methods of co-production; sign-posting Cochrane Review authors to resources aimed at supporting best practice; maintaining and developing learning resources of learning resources; supporting learning and dissemination activities; and updating co-production guidance in Cochrane Handbooks. This session is an opportunity for stakeholders to come together to examine the current state of evidence, listen to one another, identify gaps, evidence, information and practice and to determine the Cochrane Community’s priorities for future work to extend and improve the practice of co-production.
This interactive Special Session will bring together researchers, consumers and other stakeholders from the Cochrane Community and other Methods Groups, and partner organizations. The aims and objectives of the proposed Co-production Methods Group will be described and discussed. Participants will explore definitions of co-production and who the stakeholders are of systematic reviews and other forms of research. Researchers and consumers will share examples of methods research including the ACTIVE project, involvement in Living Systematic Reviews and rapid evidence production, and resources to support co-production. Presenters will describe current research, including the MuSE project. Participants will discuss organizational policy, and the nature and extent of co-production within Cochrane and the wider community, including the Cochrane Consumer Network, and consumer perspectives on current practice. Drawing on all of the preceding information and discussion, participants will identify and rank future priorities for the Co-production Methods Group. Target audience: People with an interest in the methodology of stakeholder engagement and involvement Format: Discussion |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Introduction to meta-analysis 2: dealing with heterogeneity | Workshop - training | Background:
The studies in a meta-analysis may vary in their included populations, how the intervention of interest was used, how outcomes were assessed, and in study design and conduct. This variability in study properties may lead to variability in the outcomes across studies. This variability in outcomes in a meta-analysis is called heterogeneity. Determining whether heterogeneity across studies is present in a meta-analysis and identifying its possible causes are critical components of any meta-analysis.
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Synthesizing and presenting results when meta-analysis is not possible | Workshop - training | Background:
In reviews in which meta-analysis is not used, authors commonly report results study-by-study or draw conclusions without reporting how findings were interpreted across studies. These approaches may leave decision-makers to make sense of the findings themselves and undermine confidence in the evidence. There are many circumstances that may preclude the use of meta-analysis of effect estimates. For example, when there is incomplete information reported about the intervention effect estimates (e.g., missing standard errors) or inconsistency in the reported effect metrics across studies. Planning for circumstances that may preclude meta-analysis can ensure that reviewers make the best use of available data and produce more useful syntheses for decision-makers. This workshop will cover structured summary, synthesis methods, and visual display methods that can be used in these circumstances (sometimes referred to as “narrative synthesis”).
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Practical advice for accessing patient-level data from a data sharing platform for evidence synthesis | Workshop - training | Background:
Since 2014, opportunities to request and access the patient level datasets collected in a clinical trial have become more commonplace. Vivli is an independent, non-profit organisation that has developed a global data-sharing and analytics platform. Patient-level data is available from 7,000 clinical trials that are provided by academic funders, pharmaceutical companies, and charitable funders.
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Systematic reviews of prognosis studies I: Introduction, design and protocol of systematic reviews of prognosis studies | Workshop - training | Background: Prognosis studies are abundant in medical literature. Hence, systematic reviews of these studies are increasingly required and conducted to identify and critically appraise the existing evidence. A Cochrane handbook for prognosis reviews is currently being prepared describing guidance for conducting a systematic review of prognosis studies. The CHARMS tool is developed to provide guidance for design and conduct of the first steps of systematic reviews of prognosis studies. CHARMS can assist reviewers of prognosis studies in defining the review objectives and design of the review and creating the data extraction list to enhance critical appraisal of the primary studies. |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Integrating the findings of a qualitative evidence synthesis (QES) with the findings of a review of intervention effects | Workshop - training | QMIG Methods Workshop
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Demystifying R Part 2: An introduction to coding in R and RStudio | Workshop - training | Background:
Tools like R and Python are becoming increasingly useful in the conduct of systematic reviews and evidence synthesis. In R specifically, many tools have been developed to facilitate the systematic review process. Some of these tools provide vignettes and examples to help novice coders make use of the tools in a coding environment like RStudio, and others have graphical user interfaces that make them accessible to users without coding experience.
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | MetaDTA and MetaBayesDTA: Interactive web applications to conduct meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy studies | Workshop - training | Background Diagnostic tests form an essential part of current medical practices aiming to distinguish between patients with the disease and healthy individuals. They are used across a diverse range of healthcare settings and are often a pre-requisite to identifying treatment options and enabling access to services. Recommended statistical methods for meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies require the fitting of complex non-standard statistical models, which can be a barrier to their application. MetaDTA (https://crsu.shinyapps.io/dta_ma/) is a free interactive online application which, for meta-analyses DTA studies using the bivariate model, plots the summary receiver operating characteristic curve, encourages sensitivity analysis and incorporates quality assessment results from the QUADAS-2 tool. MetaBayesDTA (https://crsu.shinyapps.io/MetaBayesDTA/) is a version that extends the functionality to allow for imperfect gold standards, subgroup analysis, meta-regression and comparative test accuracy evaluation. Both apps produce visualisations which facilitate the communication of results to all stakeholders, including patients and healthcare professionals. Due to the rich feature-set and user-friendly “point and click” interface of these apps, this workshop should appeal to a wide audience, including non-statistical experts. Objectives To illustrate how MetaDTA and MetaBayesDTA can be used to conduct DTA meta-analyses (using methods recommended in Version 2 of Cochrane Handbook) and for participants to get hands-on experience of using the apps in a structured and supportive environment. Description This workshop will provide an introduction to MetaDTA and MetaBayesDTA and offer participants experience using these web-based applications. During this workshop, we will: i. Demonstrate how MetaDTA and MetaBayesDTA can be used to conduct a Cochrane DTA meta-analysis using an example from a Cochrane reviews; ii. Demonstrate the wide array of interactive functions available within MetaDTA and MetaBayesDTA; iii. Provide participants with a dataset and worksheet designed to guide them, at their own pace, through the stages of conducting an analysis in MetaDTA and MetaBayesDTA; and iv. Provide time for questions, discussion and feedback. Topics covered will include loading data, customising summary receiver operating characteristics (SROC) plots, obtaining statistics, visualising study quality results and covariate effects, conducting sensitivity analyses and exporting tables and figures. All participants must bring a laptop or tablet or may share with another participant. |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Performing and disseminating review findings through art and design | Workshop - training | Background:
Interest in using multimodal, arts-based methods in the context of health-related research has been increasing recently. Its value lies not only in its ability to unearth complex, rich and nuanced data but also in how the process/processes can simultaneously facilitate the accessibility of evidence (MacGregor et al. 2022; West et al. 2022; Archibald & Blines 2021; Ball et al. 2021; Boydel 2019; Fraser & Al Sayah 2011). From a new materialist perspective, knowledge is not merely an independent, tightly bound entity to be used or consumed but is rather a dynamic construct that can adapt and change as it is applied and used in everyday contexts.
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Complying with Cochrane's Conflict of Interest policy | Workshop - training | Background:
All Cochrane Library content must comply with Cochrane’s conflict of interest (CoI) policy, which applies to all individuals involved in creating Cochrane Library content. The Research Integrity team and Cochrane’s policy team are proposing this workshop to support authors, editors, and others interested in understanding the application of Cochrane’s CoI policy and its related editorial policy on authorship.
Authors bear primary responsibility for ensuring compliance with both the CoI and authorship policies prior to submission of a completed article, and Cochrane managing editors check for policy adherence when receiving a completed submission. At this stage, it can be difficult to correct breaches of the CoI policy without creating new breaches of Cochrane’s authorship policy, such as ghost authorship (see “Conflict of interest and authorship” at https://community.cochrane.org/news/conflicts-interests-and-authorship-lessons-revised-policy). Noncompliance discovered at submission or later may result in an article’s rejection, representing a major loss of effort for the author team and the loss of a timely article for the Cochrane Library.
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5:45 PM - 7:15 PM | Annual General Meeting (AGM) | Special Session | All Cochrane Members and supporters are cordially invited to attend Cochrane's 2023 Annual General Meeting! The aim of the Annual General Meeting is for Cochrane's Trustees - its Governing Board - and senior officers to explain their management of the charity to you, the Members. It also provides you with an opportunity to ask questions and decide on business and current issues affecting the organization, which are put to the vote as 'Resolutions'. Voting on AGM Resolutions:All Cochrane Members as defined by the Membership Terms & Conditions are entitled to vote on AGM Resolutions. You are entitled to vote even if you are not attending the meeting. If you are not sure whether you are a Member, or you are having trouble voting, please contact support@cochrane.org. You may choose to vote online in advance of the AGM regardless of whether you are planning to attend in person. If you are attending, you can choose to wait until the AGM to vote. In all circumstances at the time of voting you must have access to an internet-connected device. To find out more about voting, visit: https://agm.cochrane.org/agm-2023 |
7:30 AM - 8:30 AM | Nutrition & Physical Activity TG - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Opportunity for TG members and participants to meet and to discuss the workplan of the TG and brainstorm future directions. | ||||||||||||||
7:30 AM - 8:45 AM | Iberoamerican Network Meeting | Meeting | Meeting for all the members of the Iberoamerican Cochrane Network. | ||||||||||||||
7:30 AM - 8:45 AM | Study within a review (SWAR) network meeting | Meeting |
A study within a review (SWAR)is a research study that can help provide evidence to inform decisions about how we plan, do and share the findings of future reviews. We’d like to bring together people who are interested in SWARs, and start a SWAR Network. We envision this network would explore SWAR methods, keep everyone up-to-date, and potentially explore challenges and opportunities around SWARs. This meeting is hosted by Evidence Synthesis Ireland (https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.evidencesynthesisireland.ie%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cskhamissa%40cochrane.org%7Ccf60af1acc584846cb2c08db29569453%7Cb6c2e21e4db74533916398c1451c1caa%7C0%7C0%7C638149224049203720%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=cpHq2XY7BB3I%2FynrxDbiu%2BWNSrUECp9wmuvRnKgNlkg%3D&reserved=0) and Cochrane Ireland, who recently launched their inaugural SWAR Award Scheme. | ||||||||||||||
7:30 AM - 8:45 AM | Cochrane Francophone Network - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Cochrane France has created a Cochrane Francophone Network in 2020. Members of Cochrane Belgium, Cochrane Canada - Francophone, Cochrane Cameroon and Cochrane Switzerland had participated in several online meetings. For this occasion, we would also like to involve the francophone members of Cochrane Skin, Cochrane PEC, Cochrane Cochrane lung cancer and Cochrane Musculoskeletal. The purpose of the meeting is to share information about training activities and projects that each group is developing in French and discuss about the ways we can work together to disseminate and participate in those activities. In this way, Cochrane evidence will be available in the French speaking countries. We have also proposed to develop this network, particularly to enhance Cochrane representation in Francophone Africa where evidence based activities are very limited. | ||||||||||||||
7:30 AM - 8:45 AM | Information Retrieval Methods Group Annual meeting | Meeting | An annual meeting of IRMG members and others with an interest in information retrieval methodology. A chance for members to catch up and view presentations on group members recent activity. | ||||||||||||||
7:45 AM - 8:45 AM | Cochrane Statistical Methods Group | Meeting | This is the administrative and scientific meeting of the Statistical Methods Group (SMG). A brief update will be provided on SMG activities. This will be followed by presentations and discussion. Guido Skipka will talk on Methods for evidence synthesis in the case of very few studies. | ||||||||||||||
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM | Ensuring integrity in biomedical research | Plenary | We all need data we can trust. Cochrane policy requires that studies with serious research integrity problems, including fraudulent data, be excluded from Cochrane Reviews. This plenary explored the scope and root causes of the problem of fraudulent and problematic research. Solutions to identifying and preventing the publication of research with serious research integrity problems were discussed. The international panel of speakers offered perspectives from a variety of disciplines on paper mills, tools to identify fraudulent studies, and what systematic reviewers and journals can do to improve research integrity. There was ample time for audience participation in the discussion of proposed solutions. Keynotes:
Related sessions:
This session was chaired by Richard Van Noorden, from Nature. | ||||||||||||||
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM | Break | Coffee break | |||||||||||||||
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Global health, equity and partnerships | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Evidence synthesis innovations and technology | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Evidence synthesis and clinical guidelines: tools and methods | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Patient or healthcare consumer involvement | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Statistical methods and meta-analysis | Oral session |
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Communicating your work | Skills Lab | Communications experts from Cochrane invite you to a special session about communicating your research, aimed at authors and researchers who want to share the impact of their work with wider audiences. In this fast-paced 90-minute session we will go through some basics of science communication, ask thought-provoking questions, offer small group activities, and share case studies to enhance your skill in engaging others through confident storytelling. This interactive session will cover:
Using storytelling tactics you’ve heard in the session, you’ll also have the opportunity to explore how you could communicate your own research. Presenters: Harry Dayantis, Georg Ruschemeyer, Wanjiru Mwangi Moderators/facilitators: Katie Abbotts, Muriah Umoquit | ||||||||||||||
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | An Agile Scientific Strategy for Global Health: Cochrane’s Future Direction | Special Session | Cochrane, globally recognized as a trusted health evidence producer, is paving the way for the future by embracing transformative changes aimed at enhancing its global health impact. This Special Session at the Cochrane Colloquium will shed light on these transformative changes and demonstrate how they establish a pathway towards a pioneering scientific strategy. Underlining the need for adaptability, Cochrane is recalibrating its processes and methods to enhance experiences for both authors and users of Cochrane evidence. These transformational shifts, although substantial, are integral to maintaining the organization’s relevance and influence in the dynamic global health landscape. At the core of these transformations is a strategic emphasis on 20 thematic areas that align with the health-related objectives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Collaborating with a range of stakeholders, Cochrane aspires to generate trusted evidence syntheses and champion their worldwide application, aiming for improved health outcomes globally and promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion. This session will outline the critical steps towards developing this scientific strategy, including a detailed overview of the transformational changes in progress. It will also offer an opportunity to delve into the focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and initiate a broader consultation process to select key themes. The session represents an invitation to engage with Cochrane’s ambitious vision for global health and its commitment to fostering a culture of evidence-informed health and care worldwide. Target audience: Everyone | ||||||||||||||
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Maximizing the potential of data associated with Cochrane reviews: Opportunities and future directions for the new review data package | Workshop - discussion | Background: Sharing the data associated with Cochrane reviews beyond the analyses data opens up an array of benefits and opportunities, including: facilitating sharing and use of data; increasing opportunities for re-use and further analysis; increased potential to impact policy; increasing research visibility, discovery, impact and recognition; facilitating research validity through replication and verification; decreasing the risk of research fraud through transparency; facilitating collaborative research and reducing redundancy and research waste across siloed groups; use of real research in educational materials; enabling public understanding; and promotion of citizen science.
Cochrane recently introduced a new data package available to download on published Cochrane reviews, which include included studies data, included study arms data and results data, risk of bias assessments and the support for judgements, analyses data and the review’s references. This data package is organized in different data formats to facilitate re-use, including via RevMan or other tools such as Microsoft Excel and various statistical packages. These same data formats also underpin the route that enables authors to transfer data between Covidence and RevMan.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Issues in Using, Interpreting, and Presenting Patient-Reported Outcomes in Cochrane Reviews | Workshop - training | Background: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized trials that include patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) provide crucial information for patients and clinicians facing challenging healthcare decisions. Based on emerging methods, guidance on combining PROMs in meta-analyses and interpreting results will likely enhance their usefulness for decision-makers.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Conducting a Cochrane Methods Peer Review – Good Practice and Common Challenges | Workshop - training | Background:
Cochrane is moving towards a central editorial service that clearly separates author and editorial roles in the evidence synthesis production model. As part of this process, the Cochrane Central Editorial Service sends every Cochrane review for consumer, clinical, search and methods peer review prior to publication. This robust process ensures that evidence published is accurate, reliable and useable. To ensure that this process remains efficient and useful for authors and results in high-quality systematic reviews, the peer reviewer reports should be of the highest standard, clear, consistent, and appropriately worded.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Cochrane-Wikipedia Initiative: Hands-on workshop to help improve health content that people are accessing online | Workshop - training | Background: Improving the quality and reliability of online health articles that are accessed regularly across the internet is a significant challenge. Millions of people access medical articles on Wikipedia each day across 286 different languages. On English language Wikipedia alone, 40,000 human health and medicine articles are viewed billions of times a year, often surpassing the viewership of more reliable sources such as the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for topics including information about COVID-19. Cochrane partnered with Wikipedia in 2014 with the joint goal of improving the reliability of health information accessed on Wikipedia. As of 2023, 3,400 Cochrane Systematic Reviews published in the past 10 years help inform evidence in medical articles shared on English Wikipedia. There are additional ongoing initiatives in other languages including Spanish, Dutch, French, Malay, and German Wikipedias. Many Cochrane community members and volunteers participate in this initiative, collaborating with the Wikipedia editing community and using high-quality and trusted evidence to correct errors of omission, expand medical articles, and remove unreliable or outdated content shared on Wikipedia.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | A hands-on introduction to NMAstudio: a web-application to produce and visualize network meta-analyses | Workshop - training | Background: Evaluation of network meta-analysis (NMA) evidence can be challenging and time-consuming, especially when dealing with large networks of interventions. Despite the fact that NMAs are increasingly adopted to inform decision-making, the lack of user-friendly software is still limiting their usage to a restricted community of users.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Searching for studies for inclusion in Cochrane Reviews: a core Cochrane methods introductory workshop for Cochrane Review authors and others | Workshop - training | Background: Searching for studies forms the basis of any systematic review, and the effectiveness of the searching in identifying the relevant studies for inclusion in the review has an impact on the reliability of the results of the review.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Conducting Rapid Qualitative Evidence Synthesis: Why, when and how? | Workshop - training | QMIG Methods workshop:
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy studies: Introduction to meta-analysis | Workshop - training | Background: For making informed decisions about medical tests, healthcare organisations and policymakers typically rely on information from studies that assess diagnostic accuracy, i.e., how well a test gets the diagnosis right in people who have and those who do not have the target condition. Therefore, it is essential that valid methods are used to produce high-quality evidence reviews that will be used to inform recommendations for patient care. This core workshop organised by the Cochrane Screening and Diagnostic Tests Methods Group is designed for those who have a keen interest in gaining insight into test accuracy meta-analysis and how to use Review Manager (RevMan) to produce graphical summaries.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Systematic reviews of prognosis studies II: Risk of bias assessment in systematic reviews of prognosis studies | Workshop - training | Background: Prognosis is a description of the probable course of individuals with a health condition. Review and synthesis of overall prognosis, prognostic factor and prediction model studies is a relatively new and evolving area. Critical appraisal of prognosis studies is challenging but essential to assess and identify biases sufficiently large to distort study results. The Quality in Prognostic Studies (QUIPS) and Prediction model Risk Of Bias ASsessment Tool (PROBAST) tools are useful and reliable to assess risk of bias in studies of prognostic factors and prediction models, and the RoB-OPS tool is being developed for assessment of overall prognosis studies. The QUIPS tool can be used to assess risk of bias in studies of prognostic factors. It contains six important areas to evaluate the validity of prognostic factor studies and includes prompting items related to these six areas with suggestions for operationalization and grading. PROBAST is the tool for assessing the quality and risk of bias of prediction model studies. It consists of four domains and 20 signaling questions.
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12:30 PM - 1:15 PM | Rapid Reviews Methods Group (First half) - By Invitation Only | Meeting | In this meeting we would like to discuss the ongoing work of the Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group and use the chance to finally meet in person again | ||||||||||||||
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM | Meet the Editors | Networking session | Grab your lunch and take a moment to meet the Editors of the Cochrane Handbooks. Simply join them at the designated table for an informal chat and ask them any questions you may have. The Editors will be available at:
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12:30 PM - 1:45 PM | Speakers of the special session - Research and Publication Integrity - By Invitation Only | Meeting | This is a closed meeting to debrief following the plenary session. | ||||||||||||||
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM | Lunch break and meetings | Lunch break | |||||||||||||||
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM | Consumer Executive Meeting - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Meeting of the Cochrane Consumer Network Executive | ||||||||||||||
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM | Poster session 2 | Poster session | During this session the following posters will be presented:
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12:30 PM - 2:15 PM | Cochrane Fields | Meeting | Exchange with all Field members and others interested in Field activities. | ||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | NAVIGATE Meeting - By Invitation Only | Meeting | This meeting is with collaborators from both JBI and Campbell organisations. It is a research meeting to plan future work. | ||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group Meeting - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Strategy Meeting | ||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Multimodality methods meeting | Meeting | The multimodality methods group seeks to inform and guide the Cochrane systematic review community in combining multiple types of evidence, displayed in a variety of different forms and using multiple dissemination channels to make reviews more comprehensive and inclusive. We would like to extend the range of formats used in the production and dissemination of reviews. This means including different forms of evidence (numerical, narrative and sensory data), vary with form in presenting insights or using different formats to communicate with the public, this may be inclusive of creative methods such as performance and art. We initiate this methods group based on our collective interest in the value of information carriers beyond the printed page that represent evidence and what they might contribute to the inclusivity agenda from Cochrane. It is our aim to respond to information and presentation needs from different populations currently involved or who might become involved in Cochrane. We invite you to hop on board! | ||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Translation project managers - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Closed meeting with Cochrane's translation teams. | ||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Central Editorial Service Sign-off Editors Meeting | Meeting | |||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Bias Methods Group | Meeting |
The meeting will involve a short summary of the groups work in 2022 and scientific presentations and discussions with focus on ROBINS-E and the revised ROBINS-I. | ||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Information Specialists - By Invitation Only | Meeting | We will discuss issues relevant to Cochrane Information Specialists and other information specialists working on Cochrane reviews. | ||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | GELA - By Invitation Only | Meeting | |||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Cochrane Skin Meeting - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Meeting of the group to present future orientations and organisation | ||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Evidence Synthesis Taxonomy Initiative | Meeting | The JBI Evidence Synthesis Taxonomy Initiative aims to develop a comprehensive evidence synthesis taxonomy to encourage and facilitate appropriate research synthesis to inform policy and practice. This meeting will discuss progress, next steps and a chance to collaborate further. | ||||||||||||||
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Meet the Thematic Groups | Networking session | Grab your lunch and take a moment to meet representatives of the Thematic Groups. Simply join them at the designated table for an informal chat and ask them any questions you may have.
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1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Meet the Author Journey Lead: Find out how to propose a new or updated review | Networking session | Cochrane welcomes proposals for new and updated Cochrane Reviews. Find out more about how to propose a new or updated review, and what the topic experts that consider proposals are looking for. All questions very welcome. | ||||||||||||||
1:15 PM - 2:00 PM | Rapid Reviews Methods Group (Second half) | Meeting | In this meeting we would like to discuss the ongoing work of the Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group and use the chance to finally meet in person again. | ||||||||||||||
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Co-production and co-design | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Priority setting and partnerships | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Overviews of reviews, scoping reviews and network meta-analysis | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Bias and certainty of evidence | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | 30 Years of the Cochrane Collaboration: why and how did it get started? A conversation with some of those who were there at the beginning | Special Session | As we celebrate 30 years since the founding of the Cochrane Collaboration, Karla Soares-Weiser and Jimmy Volmink discuss with some of the founders of the Collaboration what motivated them and others who co-founded the organization. Karla and Jimmy are joined by Iain Chalmers, Muir Gray and Jini Hetherington among others in this look back at the formation of the Collaboration in 1993. Answers to a range of questions explore the collaborative ethos that inspired the creation of a global network to prepare and maintain systematic reviews of research to inform decisions in health care. Target audience: Anyone interested in starting a revolution is welcome Format: An informal panel conversation | ||||||||||||||
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Research and Publication Integrity | Special Session | Identifying biomedical and clinical research manuscripts and publications with serious integrity problems helps to generate reliable evidence from the literature. This session will continue discussions from the earlier keynote session on research integrity, which will offer perspectives on paper mills, tools to identify fraudulent studies, and how systematic reviewers and journals can improve research and publication integrity. This Special Session aims to elicit further views and discussion from the audience on these and other challenges, to inform efforts to find and implement workable solutions. The session will conclude by describing how attendees can join efforts to improve the reliability of published biomedical and clinical research. Target audience: The Special Session will be open to all delegates. Attendees will not need to have joined the keynote session on research integrity to attend this session. Format: The session will commence with brief opening comments (5-10 minutes) to introduce the topic to attendees who did not attend the earlier keynote session. We then wish to maximize audience participation and discussions whilst retaining some structure so that we can capture audience opinions and ideas (60 minutes). The session will conclude with a brief summary of the major points raised and describe how attendees can help to improve the reliability of published biomedical and clinical research (10 minutes). Speakers: Jennifer Byrne (Co-chair), John Carlisle (Co-chair), Lisa Bero, Cyril Labbé, Limbanazo Matandika, Richard Van Noorden and Gowri Gopalakrishna. | ||||||||||||||
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Considering scope in the planning and completion of systematic reviews | Workshop - training | Background:
A burgeoning issue in evidence-based medicine is the scope and scale of how research questions are formulated. The scope of the review question and formulation of objectives have major implications on several stages of the systematic review process. This workshop will inform authors on how to consider scope when planning and conducting a systematic review.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | MetaInsight: An interactive user-friendly “point and click” web application to conduct network meta-analysis | Workshop - training | Background Network meta-analysis (NMA) allows the comparison of multiple competing interventions for a condition. Such analyses have become very popular due to their relevance for clinical decision-making. MetaInsight is a freely available user-friendly web-app with a “point and click” interface, including novel graphical displays to aid understanding and facilitate effective communication of the (often complex) results of an NMA to a range of stakeholders, including patients and decision-makers. It is actively used worldwide, with approximately 600 user hours per month, and is continuously being developed according to user needs. Objectives i. To provide an interactive demonstration of the functionality of MetaInsight v4 including user-interactive features and novel graphical visualisations; ii. To provide a user’s experience of using MetaInsight for conducting network meta-analyses for National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and Cochrane reviews; iii. For participants to gain hands-on experience of MetaInsight by completing a worksheet which will guide them through the analysis of an NMA dataset using the app. Description This workshop will provide an introduction to MetaInsight for conducting NMA, including the perspectives of a current user of the app, and demonstrate the wide array of functions available within the app as well as ‘tips & tricks’ for running an analysis. Participants will be provided with ‘hands-on’ experience of using the app. They will be given an example dataset and worksheet designed to guide them, at their own pace, through the stages of conducting an analysis in MetaInsight. Topics covered will include the following: loading data; obtaining statistics using both Frequentist and Bayesian analyses; visualising the NMA results, including ranking statistics, using novel visual graphical displays; conducting sensitivity analyses; and a new feature for exporting a report of the analysis including all data inputs, results tables and figures, facilitating analysis transparency. There will be plenty of time provided for questions, discussion and feedback. Finally, there will be a brief discussion of the current limitations of the app and future planned developments. Participants will be required to bring a laptop or tablet or may share with another participant. | ||||||||||||||
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | How to do a rapid review – updated methods guidance | Workshop - training | Background: Having quick access to systematically produced evidence syntheses is crucial in addressing urgent health questions. The Cochrane Rapid Review Methods Group (RRMG) has published interim guidance to facilitate the conduct of Rapid Reviews (RR) both within Cochrane and beyond (1). This guidance aims to provide support and direction for conducting effective and efficient RRs. Three years later, the RRMG updated the guidance integrating new knowledge on the conduct of RRs and feedback from users of the interim guidance.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Applying the Instrument to assess the Credibility of Effect Modification Analyses (ICEMAN) in a meta-analysis | Workshop - training | BACKGROUND: Subgroup analyses are relatively easy to perform but can be difficult to interpret. Credibility is often low, whereas the risk of over-interpretation is high. ICEMAN is a structured approach generated through expert consensus and provides eight items for judging the credibility of subgroup effects identified in a meta-analysis. OBJECTIVES: Learn how to apply ICEMAN to an apparent subgroup effect and, if credible, how to design a corresponding GRADE summary of findings table. DESCRIPTION: Participants will apply ICEMAN to examples from the literature. We will discuss, for each item, conceptual and practical challenges. The workshop does not include statistical exercises; the focus is on the interpretation and reporting of subgroup effects. Participants should bring their laptop, if available, and are welcome to discuss their own examples. Key references: (1) Schandelmaier et al. CMAJ, 2020: Doi: 10.1503/cmaj.200077 (2) Guyatt et al. J Clin Epidemiol, 2023: Title: “GRADE Guidance 36: Updates to GRADE’s approach to addressing inconsistency” (in press) | ||||||||||||||
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Learning by doing: Introducing Cochrane Classmate | Workshop - training | Background:
Built on the premise that people often learn best by doing, Classmate was built to enable teachers of evidence synthesis to use the tasks available on Cochrane Crowd in their teaching environments. Classmate now offers trainers and teachers a range of tasks and learning activities that relate to producing and understanding high quality health evidence.
The process is simple: a teacher logs into Classmate and selects the task or tasks they want their students to do. They set the timeframe in which the task is to be done and then invite their students to the task. They can put their students into groups or teams, and they can monitor their students’ progress in the task. Classmate enables teachers to enhance or supplement their teaching; it provides students with the opportunity to contribute to real and needed tasks; and it helps Cochrane keep up to date with the ever-increasing amounts of primary research being produced.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Identifying who benefits most from treatments: How to analyse, present and interpret interactions and subgroup effects in meta-analysis | Workshop - training | Background: Researchers often wish to identify which individuals benefit more (or less) from interventions; this idea underpins the concept of stratified medicine. As single studies are typically underpowered for exploring whether participant characteristics determine an individual’s response to treatment, meta-analysis can provide a solution. Whilst individual participant data provide the most power and analytical flexibility to investigate interactions between such characteristics and the intervention effect, aggregate data (AD) can also often be used. However, approaches to the analysis, presentation and interpretation of interactions vary widely. | ||||||||||||||
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Systematic reviews of prognosis studies III: Meta-analytical approaches in systematic reviews of prognosis studies | Workshop - training | Background: Prediction models are commonly developed and validated for predicting the presence (diagnostic) or future occurrence (prognostic) of a particular outcome. Prediction models have become abundant in the literature. Many models have been validated in numerous different studies. Also, numerous studies investigate the (added) value of a prognostic factor/predictor/biomarker to existing predictors. In both situations, aggregating such data is important for making inferences on the predictive performance of a specific model or predictor/marker. Meta-analytical approaches for both situations have recently been developed.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Vaccine efficacy/effectiveness: Calculation, visualization, and interpretation based on an exemplary systematic review on COVID-19 vaccination in children | Workshop - training | Background:
Vaccine efficacy/effectiveness (VE) is commonly used to express the effect of vaccines to prevent diseases, e.g., COVID-19. Although the general formula for VE calculation is straight forward on the first glance [VE=(1-VE_ratio)*100], one has to take into account that several different VE-ratio measures are used in individual studies, which are potentially included in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. These include, for example, risk ratios, odds ratios, hazard ratios, or incidence rate ratios. This cannot only lead to questions in VE calculation but also in issues regarding interpretation of a pooled estimate of different VE ratios. Moreover, visualization of VE estimates in forest plots is not yet possible in RevMan Web resulting in the need for alternative approaches, e.g., using the software R.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Finding, critically appraising, and using a core outcome set (COS) to inform your systematic review | Workshop - training | Background:
A core outcome set (COS) is an agreed standardised set of outcomes that should be measured and reported, as a minimum, in all clinical trials in a specific health condition. This would allow research to be compared and combined, ensuring all studies contribute usable information for the core outcomes. The involvement of relevant stakeholders, especially patients and health professionals, in COS development helps ensure the outcomes important to those groups are included.
Many organisations, including Cochrane, now actively endorse COS use in systematic reviews to help ensure outcomes important to patients and other key stakeholders are considered. The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions acknowledges the relevance of COS to defining review questions and planning the review, helping ensure the inclusion of patient-centred outcomes.
By maintaining the free, searchable Core Outcome Measures for Effectiveness Trials (COMET) database, the COMET Initiative can help systematic reviewers to identify and use COS. Among a sample of Cochrane reviews from 2019, 7% referred to a COS when choosing outcomes, yet 35% of the remaining reviews could have considered a relevant existing COS. Most Cochrane Review Group editors (86%) thought that COS should definitely or possibly be used to inform the selection of review outcomes.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Assessing risk of bias in comparative diagnostic accuracy studies using QUADAS-C | Workshop - training | Background: Diagnostic Test Accuracy reviews addressing comparative questions may include studies directly comparing index tests in the same study group. Because these comparative accuracy studies aim to estimate the difference in accuracy between tests (rather than solely the accuracy of each test), we need to consider additional sources of bias specific to test comparisons. The QUADAS-C tool, an extension to QUADAS-2, considers these additional sources of bias and is endorsed by Cochrane for assessing risk of bias in comparative accuracy studies.
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3:30 PM - 4:00 PM | Break | Coffee break | |||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Living evidence: innovations and technology | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Methodological quality and evidence synthesis innovation | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Individual patient data meta-analysis | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Teaching the public to understand and use evidence | Oral session | |||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | The Art of Getting By: Leadership and Team Working Styles | Skills Lab | The session will give you some insights into a generic leadership model that is applicable to running a country, a healthcare system, a university department, a research programme, a sports team, a family, even your own life. The team working style session looks at the four basic ways that members of a team interact. You will explore these and find out your own preferred working style and how to work better with different working styles, so you can get on with people better. This is linked to a second session - The Art of Getting By: Influencing skills: Communication and Negotiation on Wednesday 6th September at 11.00-12.30, but can also be attended as a stand-alone session. Both sessions will be employing simple "heuristics" – ways of understanding complex situations and making better choices. They are so simple you can keep them in your head. The skills are generic, and you can employ them in your private life as well as your working life. You will even return home with a couple of heuristics to try out the same evening! | ||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Diversity and Inclusion in Cochrane | Special Session | In the last few years, there has been an increasing debate on how scientific journals represent sex, gender, ethnicity and other aspects of human diversity. Moreover, the hegemony of the English language in scientific publications lays the foundation for structural inequalities for native speakers in other languages. Cochrane has conducted a listening and learning exercise to identify the challenges and opportunities in the area of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). Now, we must work as an organization to promote inclusivity and minimize structural biases in our Collaboration. We selected some topics and recommendations to discuss in this special session. Please read the following report from Cochrane: Cochrane launches report summarizing what we have heard from our diversity and inclusion listening and learning exercise. Section one: lightening presentations (25 minutes) Section two: World Café table discussions. 12 minutes per table plus 2 minutes moving between tables (based on the themes) Section three: Feedback and wrap-up (10 minutes) Target audience: Anyone with an interest in supporting diversity and inclusion Format: A combination of presentations and discussion | ||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Maintaining our place as a trusted health evidence producer: the Future of Evidence Synthesis programme | Special Session | The global health, research and publishing landscape has changed beyond recognition since our organization began in the early 1990s – giving rise to both complex challenges and new opportunities for Cochrane. To maintain our hard-earned place as one of the world’s most trusted health evidence producers, we need to adapt and directly address a diverse range of critical issues – from the loss of traditional funding sources and the move to a fully Open Access model, to the increasing demand for rapid evidence in new formats. To ensure Cochrane’s future we are working to deliver a new model for producing Cochrane evidence syntheses through our Future of Evidence Synthesis programme. This transformational programme of work will roll out over the next three to four years and is made up of ten targeted projects, encompassing changes to our organizational structure, software, review development and editorial processes, policies and the format of Cochrane Reviews. This Special Session is an opportunity for people to understand better how key projects will impact on the Cochrane evidence synthesis ecosystem and what these changes will mean for people across the Cochrane Community. There will be an opportunity to ask questions about the programme and provide ideas that will contribute towards successful implementation. Target audience: Anyone interested in how Cochrane produces high-quality evidence synthesis in the future. Format: Presentations plus discussion / Questions & Answers | ||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Producing Trusted Evidence: Identifying the Challenges and Finding the Solutions | Workshop - discussion | Background: Having mapped the nature, scope, and quality of evidence syntheses on COVID-19 to explore the relationship between review quality and the extent of researcher, policy, and media interest, we found low quality reviews being published at pace, often with short publication turnarounds. Poorly conducted systematic reviews can lead to inaccurate representations of the evidence, misleading conclusions, and reduced applicability, limiting their usefulness and ultimately contributing to research waste. Everyone in the research community (researchers, peer-reviewers, journal editors, funders, decision makers, clinicians, journalists, and the public) can help facilitate the conduct of robust systematic reviews that are published and communicated in a timely manner, reducing research waste and increasing the transparency and accessibility of all systematic reviews.
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Lessons from four years of Cochrane’s Methods Support Unit: what are we asked and how do we answer? | Workshop - training | Background: Established in 2019, the Methods Support Unit (MSU) provides methods advice to editors and authors preparing Cochrane Reviews. We have helped people from 49 Cochrane Review Groups, dealing with more than 1,100 requests. These requests range from advice on a single methodological/statistical issue to a full review of a draft protocol or review. In addition, MSU has provided many hours of interactive training and authored guidance on key methods issues.
As a result, MSU is in a unique position to understand the methodological and statistical concerns of Cochrane authors and editors and to provide accessible training of immediate usefulness.
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Storyboarding as a multimodal analytical technique in a qualitative evidence synthesis | Workshop - training | Background: Multimodality is centralized around the fundamental question of how to use and combine modes of expression to organize, analyze, synthesize, interpret, and share research evidence. The use of multiple, engaging modalities, for example words in combination with images, establishes new audiences for research findings and promotes health equity by communicating research in an accessible, comprehensible way. Storyboarding is defined as the process of putting together images to arrange or illustrate a story in a specific sequence. This can be considered as a “visual text of images” (Hart, 2008; Naicker, et al. 2020). Visual storyboarding techniques can present themselves as a legitimate and rigorous method in a systematic review project (Hendricks et al. 2022). They can capture meaning, while at the same time embracing creativity, extending rigor, and increasing the review’s appeal for a broader public. This analytic technique is useful for working with studies which include photos and other types of data. See published QES: Hendricks LA, Young T, Van Wyk SS, Matheï C, Hannes K. (2022): https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191811317
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Interpreting systematic review findings | Workshop - training | Background: Systematic reviews are considered the gold standard of evidence for health professionals and are increasingly used to support decision-making in health care. Understanding review results is of paramount importance in translating research evidence into clinical practice. Critical thinking needs to be applied to read and/or use a systematic review, as interpretation of findings can be quite challenging when the available evidence is inconclusive or uncertain. | ||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Advanced meta-analysis 1: Random-effects methods to be implemented in RevMan | Workshop - training | Background: Meta-analysis is typically used to estimate the mean effect size of an outcome of interest. However, also of interest is estimation of the variability in the effect sizes (heterogeneity), because this allows assessment of the consistency of effects across studies and estimation of the likely effect of the intervention in an individual setting. The DerSimonian and Laird random-effects method is widely used (and is currently the only method available in RevMan) to estimate heterogeneity, however, its performance has long been challenged. | ||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies using QUADAS-2 | Workshop - training | Background:
One of the key characteristics of a systematic review is the assessment of the quality of the included studies. If these individual studies are flawed, then the results of a meta-analysis and review in general are also flawed.
To assess the quality of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies, we will practise the use of the QUADAS-2 tool.
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Systematic reviews of prognosis studies IV: The use of GRADE for assessing the certainty of evidence for questions of overall prognosis and prognostic factors | Workshop - training | Background The GRADE approach is widely used for assessing certainty in inferences drawn from evidence. The GRADE approach has been adopted to assess certainty in evidence on overall prognosis and prognostic factors. Objective Present participants with an interactive session designed to understand and apply GRADE to evidence on overall prognosis and prognostic factors. Description We will engage participants on 10 topics related to the application of the GRADE for questions of prognosis. We will provide participants with examples from real systematic reviews. Participants will review the reviews and apply the GRADE guidance to determine the certainty. Study design: The participants will be engaged in discussions over the ideal study design when assessing evidence related to prognosis. Risk of bias: The domain will be introduced (high vs low risk of bias studies) with focus on considerations necessary for evidence related to prognostic factors (adjusted vs unadjusted associations). Inconsistency: We review the concept of inconsistency (and its relation to statistical heterogeneity). We will assess the impact of aberrant studies and their impact on the overall conclusion of the meta-analysis. Imprecision: The participants will review the different frameworks for assessment of imprecision, along with the difference between relative compared with absolute effect estimates. The workshop will provide an online calculator for determining absolute risks necessary for the assessment of imprecision under the partially contextualized framework. Indirectness: In this segment, the attendees will compare the research question of a systematic review to the characteristics of studies addressing the research question. We will provide guidance for circumstances when it is necessary to rate down our certainty for indirectness. Publication bias: Example of a systematic review will be provided in which the assessment of publication bias based on visual inspection (funnel plot) is different compared to the statistical test. Domains for rating up and special considerations with use of GRADE: Discussion on the three domains for increasing certainty, and challenges with making judgment with domains of GRADE that are highly interrelated. | ||||||||||||||
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | How to incorporate information on funding and conflicts of interest in trials when conducting a Cochrane Review: the TACIT tool | Workshop - training | Background: Industry funding and trial researchers’ financial conflicts of interest are common in clinical trials and are associated with favourable trial conclusions and seemingly greater treatment effects. Information on funding and conflicts of interest is therefore considered important when interpreting trial findings. The Cochrane Handbook includes a section on conflicts of interest based on the concepts behind a new Tool for Addressing Conflicts of Interest in Trials (TACIT) to be used in the context of systematic reviews, e.g., Cochrane Reviews. TACIT provides a framework for collecting funding and conflicts of interest information for a trial in order to reach a judgement on whether there is notable concern about conflicts of interest affecting the design, conduct, analysis or reporting of the trial, and the sufficiency of information this assessment is based on.
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | How to use and evaluate OpenAlex tools for efficient automated updating of systematic reviews and maps in EPPI-Reviewer | Workshop - training | Background: Keeping on top of new evidence is a perennial challenge. Systematic reviews can quickly become out of date, and maintaining surveillance of new evidence can be resource intensive and costly. For example, identifying new eligible studies for updating systematic reviews and maps of research—including those that have been transitioned to using a ‘living reviews’ approach—conventionally involves running updated Boolean searches across multiple electronic databases and manual screening of all retrieved unique records. However, new tools and technologies are beginning to address this challenge. First, the OpenAlex dataset—an open access, continually updated dataset and knowledge graph comprising more than 250 million records of research articles from across science—can be considered a ‘one stop shop’ for published research in many topic areas, reducing the need to search many, or sometimes any, subscription databases. Second, the scope of a review can be ‘learned’ by machine learning algorithms, facilitating efficient identification of eligible studies from within large datasets. OpenAlex tools in EPPI-Reviewer make use of these important enablers to support efficient updating of systematic reviews and maps, using precise automated searches of this potentially comprehensive single source with machine learning.
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7:30 PM - 11:30 PM | Social event at the Natural History Museum | Social event | We’re delighted to be hosting this year’s social event at the Natural History Museum on Tuesday 5th September, starting at 7:30pm until late. After the museum closes its doors to the public, Cochrane Colloquium attendees will be granted exclusive access to the main entrance area, Hintze Hall. This hall has dramatic Romanesque arches and a majestic staircase. You’ll have the opportunity to explore the surrounding museum specimens in the Hall and dance beneath the suspended 25-meter blue whale skeleton named ‘Hope’. Dinner, which will include bowl food and canapés, will be included and there will be an open bar (including selected drinks) for three hours, with the opportunity to buy additional drinks too. In the spirit of giving back, the Colloquium organizers have requested a £15 donation during registration, to be given to St. Mungo's, a national charity based in London that works to prevent homelessness and aid individuals in their journey to recover from it. By encouraging donations, we hope to minimize non-attendance and food waste, while positively impacting the community. Dress code: There is no dress code for the event. Please remember to bring your conference badge. Time: Tuesday 5th September, 7:30pm until late. Guests: If you would like to bring guests, you’re welcome to buy additional tickets at £75 each (including VAT). To do so, please email registration@cochrane.org and let them know how many additional tickets you would like. Address: Natural History Museum, Cromwell Rd, South Kensington, London SW7 5BD, UK |
7:30 AM - 8:45 AM | Annual Methods Groups Convenors and Staff meeting - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Each Cochrane Methods Group is dedicated to a specific method or review type relevant to Cochrane Reviews. Methods Groups are usually led by a small group of senior and experienced methodologies (Convenors and Co-convenors) with a wider membership of experienced and/or interested researchers. They are involved in methods research, defining best practices and supporting implementation in Cochrane. This meeting will help in the strategic planning of the Methods Groups activities for 2023-2024. |
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM | Building trust through co-creation: re-imagining evidence | Plenary | Generating evidence through the combination of scientific and lived experience has the potential to enable mutual trust between research and society. The aim of this session is to spark a lively discussion about addressing the impact of experiential knowledge and through that, building deeper understandings and relationships between researchers, research participants and people involved. In this session, we will explore why information and evidence as we know it may not be enough to support decision making, and reflect on examples that demonstrate ways to build trust and co-create evidence, with a discussion of differences as well as mutual learnings in the global south and global north. Keynotes:
This session will be chaired by Richard Morley, Cochrane's Consumer Engagement Officer and Maureen Smith, Chair of Cochrane Consumer Network Executive. |
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM | Break | Coffee break | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Building partnerships and implementing evidence | Oral session | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Communicating evidence | Oral session | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Core outcomes and patient reported outcomes | Oral session | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Information retrieval | Oral session | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Bias | Oral session | |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Going farther, faster together: Implementing the recommendations of the Evidence Commission report | Special Session | One year has passed since the publication of the report of the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges (henceforth the Evidence Commission). We see reasons for optimism, as well as reasons to double down on efforts to implement the report’s recommendations. While government policymakers in some countries (like those newly elected in some Latin American countries) are open to new approaches to decision-making and evidence use, many policymakers, organizational leaders and professionals have largely returned to pre-pandemic approaches. While some funders and donors and some impact-oriented evidence producers have piloted coordination mechanisms, many evidence producers continue to operate without coordination and to generate significant research waste. While many citizens have become more aware of the potential value of evidence, many others have become more distrustful of decision-makers and evidence. This Special Session has two overarching objectives:
The Evidence Commission Secretariat and its partners in 12 countries are conducting Rapid Evidence-Support System Assessments (RESSAs) and sharing lessons learned through the RESSA Country Team Leads Group. The goal in each country is to:
The Evidence Commission Secretariat and its partners are exploring ways to develop one or more viable models and to seek funding and the support of evidence producers to pilot the model and then to scale it up based on lessons learned. Efforts are also underway to partner with citizen-serving non-governmental organizations and citizen leaders to identify what works to:
Target audience: Evidence producers, evidence intermediaries and Cochrane Consumers. Format: This is a Special Session with brief presentations followed by interactive discussions with the audience to explore ways to promote, contribute to and/or lead efforts to implement the Evidence Commission’s recommendations. |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Have your say on Cochrane’s future: Defining Cochrane’s next strategy | Special Session | Cochrane’s vision of a world of better health for all people, where decisions about health and care are informed by high-quality evidence, is more important than ever, but how do we decide where to focus our efforts when working towards this ambitious vision? The answer is Cochrane’s new strategy that will allow us to prioritize our efforts to make sure we are having the greatest impact possible. We can’t do this without you! Cochrane is in the process of developing a new strategy to help us achieve our vision and mission, and to guide us through the opportunities and challenges of the next five years. Cochrane has always been a collaboration made up of brilliant people from all over the globe, so join us in this Special Session to have your say, which will help us produce a strategy that is meaningful to everyone in Cochrane. This session will give you the chance to hear first-hand from the Chief Executive Officer Catherine Spencer, about the plans for a new organizational strategy and you will get the chance to engage in this critical process, allowing you to have your say on Cochrane’s future priorities and direction. There will be a mixture of presentations, questions and answer sessions, and small group conversations, to allow the greatest possible engagement from everyone present. We want the strategy to reflect Cochrane's global and diverse nature, so would particularly welcome delegates from low- and middle-income countries, many different languages and many different roles in the organization. Please join us to shape Cochrane’s future! Target audience: Authors, group members, Cochrane Community. We should particularly welcome delegates from low- and middle-income countries, many different languages and many different roles in the organization, to ensure our strategy is diverse and inclusive. Format: Presentation then focus group discussions Additional facilitators: Susan Evans, Jordi Pardo Pardo, Flavia Marcocci, Fiona O'Brien. |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Transdisciplinary Approaches for Setting Research Priorities on Climate Change and Health: Engaging Decision Makers, Researchers, and Communities | Workshop - discussion | Background:
Climate change is having a profound impact on human, animal and planetary health. These impacts will also trigger social, economic and political changes, indicating the need for a wider understanding of the evidence landscape for identifying policy and practical solutions. There is a growing recognition of the importance of involving field workers, communities and indigenous people in setting research priorities to ensure they are contextually relevant, and the process is inclusive, where people most familiar with problems and issues in their regions are involved in such decisions. In this workshop, we will explore how decision-makers, funders and researchers can work together to set a research agenda for prioritizing evidence syntheses in this field.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | If, when and how to sample primary studies for inclusion in a qualitative evidence synthesis | Workshop - training | Background:
Too much data can threaten the quality of a data synthesis in a qualitative evidence synthesis (QES), and too little can limit transferability across multiple contexts. As a QES seeks to provide an interpretation of the evidence, it is not essential to identify and include every available, relevant study but rather only studies that adequately represent relevant data from diverse participants and contexts. Sampling can be considered within the study selection process to enable the review team to include a manageable number of studies in their review. Sampling methods are, however, not well articulated, and selecting an inappropriate sample introduces threats to QES rigour.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Introducing INSPECT-SR: a tool for detecting problematic randomised controlled trials in health systematic reviews | Workshop - training | Background:
There is a growing awareness about the problem posed by untrustworthy randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in systematic reviews. It appears that some RCTs have been partially or entirely fabricated. We call trials subject to serious research integrity issues “problematic studies”, and recent examples can be found in reviews of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19. The Cochrane policy Managing Potentially Problematic Studies states that studies should not be included until serious concerns about trustworthiness have been resolved. However, there is no consensus around how to identify problematic studies.
The INSPECT-SR (INvestigating ProblEmatic Clinical Trials in Systematic Reviews) project is developing a tool for identifying problematic RCTs in systematic reviews by combining empirical evidence with consensus methodology to develop a draft tool, which will then be refined through user testing. To date, the project has had input from over 70 people with expertise and experience in research integrity.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Scoping reviews: breaking down the what, why, and how | Workshop - training | Background: Evidence synthesis provides the best available evidence to decision-makers and is pivotal to well-functioning, rapid-learning health systems. Scoping reviews have grown in popularity within the evidence synthesis community. Scoping reviews are distinct from but related to systematic reviews and are suited to answering different research questions usually beyond the scope of a systematic review. Whilst systematic reviews are able to answer questions on the feasibility, appropriateness, meaningfulness and experiences of a particular intervention, scoping reviews identify and map evidence on a topic and identify main concepts, theories, sources and knowledge gaps. The conduct and reporting of scoping reviews is often inconsistent, and this workshop hopes to support further understanding in this area.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Advanced meta-analysis 2: Performing meta-analysis in the presence of rare events | Workshop - training | Background: Rare events are a common problem in meta-analysis, particularly for secondary and safety outcomes. When the events are rare, standard meta-analytical approaches have important limitations and may lead to biased and imprecise results. Alternative methods have been proposed in the literature that outperform in terms of bias and precision compared with the standard inverse-variance (IV) method. This workshop is part of a series of workshops delivered by the Cochrane Statistical Methods Group.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Preparing Cochrane Reviews for submission, editing and publication: common errors and how to solve them | Workshop - training | Background: All Cochrane Reviews and protocols are copy-edited by Cochrane’s Production Service (CPS) before publication to improve clarity, consistency, accuracy and completeness. Any improvements that can be made to reviews earlier in the process will:
- improve overall author, editor and copy editor experience;
- reduce handling time;
- reduce time between submission and publication;
- improve the final quality of published reviews;
- make reviews more accessible to readers, including patients and healthcare consumers; and thus
- increase their use and implementation.
The CPS team has identified a number of errors and issues that appear regularly in traditional reviews that will inform our workshop.
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | How to plan and implement synthesis questions (part 1): using the InSynQ checklist and guide for question development | Workshop - training | Background:
This is the first of a two-part workshop. This session introduces the InSynQ (Intervention Synthesis Questions) checklist and guide which aims to facilitate the development and reporting of the questions addressed in systematic reviews. The concept of defining a review ‘question’ (the objective) and developing criteria for including studies in the review using the patient/population, intervention, comparison and outcomes (PICO) framework is familiar to most authors. However, without changing the review eligibility criteria, the synthesis can be structured to address different questions (e.g., broader or narrower) simply by grouping the interventions, outcomes or populations differently. The results of a systematic review are ultimately determined by these synthesis questions and the decisions authors take in deciding which studies are eligible to answer each question. Version 6 of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions introduced the concept of ‘PICO for each synthesis’ to bring greater focus on the need to plan and report details of the synthesis questions addressed in a systematic review. InSynQ (InSynQ.info) provides a practical tool to help implement this guidance.
Objectives
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11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Drawing conclusions from network meta-analysis | Workshop - training | Background: Although the ability of ranking treatments is usually listed as one of the advantages of network meta-analysis (NMA), rankings fail to consider other pieces of relevant information and may lead to misleading conclusions. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) Working Group has developed two frameworks for drawing conclusions from NMA: a minimally contextualized framework and a partially contextualized framework. The frameworks establish that drawing appropriate conclusions from NMA requires explicit consideration of estimates of effect for each pairwise comparison, their certainty of evidence, and the rankings. |
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | Question formulation and Interpretation of Diagnostic Test Accuracy Reviews: Accuracy and beyond | Workshop - training | Background:
Question formulation is a fundamental first step in the review process and guides decisions about eligibility criteria, definitions of test comparisons to be evaluated, assessment of applicability, planning of statistical analysis and the interpretation of results. Using test accuracy statistics to describe the practical implications of using a test is a recognised challenge for the interpretation of test accuracy reviews. The workshop will offer guidance, as formulated in the Handbook for Diagnostic Test Accuracy Reviews, for formulating a diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) review question, interpretation and presentation of results.
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12:30 PM - 1:30 PM | Acute and Emergency Care - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Discuss priority setting of conducting reviews related to medical treatment and management of patients who are experiencing life-threatening medical conditions or injuries. Answer questions relevant to meta-analysis and systematic reviews relevant to pre-hospital and in-hospital care, critical care and anaesthesia. |
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM | Lunch break and meetings | Lunch break | |
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM | Poster session 3 | Poster session | During this session the following posters will be presented:
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12:45 PM - 2:00 PM | Cochrane US Network Meeting 2 | Meeting | In-person Meeting #2. This meeting is open to anyone from the United States. Please find the agenda for the meeting below. |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | CIS Exec meeting - By invitation only - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Meeting of the CIS Exec |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Systematic Review Proposal Vetting for AAO-HNS Cochrane Scholars - By Invitation Only | Meeting | This session, moderated by Martin Burton and Richard Rosenfeld, will allow Cochrane Scholars from the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery to vet their proposals for systematic reviews, and receive feedback on optimizing the scope, methods, and objectives. |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Thomas Chalmers Award Committee - By Invitation Only | Meeting | Committee Members to meet and discuss onsite process. |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Cochrane Person-Centred Care, Health Systems and Public Health Thematic Group | Meeting | The Person Centred Care, Health Systems and Public Health Thematic Group brings together the expertise currently housed in Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC), Cochrane Consumers and Communication (CCC) and Cochrane Public Health (CPH). Combining the expertise and networks of these three Cochrane review groups provides a sound base to generate more integrated evidence that considers health systems governance, financing and delivery arrangements, and population-level public health interventions, and how health systems and public health can be more person-centred. |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Consumers at the Colloquium | Meeting | This is a meeting for consumers (patients, carers and public) attending the Colloquium. It is an opportunity for consumers to meet together, with members of the Cochrane Consumer Network Executive and other members of Cochrane. The meeting will hear about developments in Cochrane that affect consumers. It will also be an opportunity for people to raise issues, ask questions and discuss issues of mutual interest to our consumer community. |
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM | Cochrane Methods Executive meeting - By Invitation Only | Meeting | The Methods Executive (ME) provides a leadership forum within Cochrane and ensures all key methodological roles can meet and liaise. It provides an advisory role to the Editor in Chief and other Cochrane governance committees and supports the Methods Groups and wider methods community in Cochrane. This meeting will help in the strategic planning of the ME priorities for 2023-2024. |
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Library of People | Networking session | The #CochraneLondon Library of People is an innovative addition to this year’s event, offering attendees a unique opportunity to engage in conversations with human ‘books’ who have stories and life experiences to share. The Library of People works just like a library with books - except the stories are told by people and you can interact with them! Members of The Cochrane Book Club will be your librarians. You will be able to listen to your book’s story in small groups; have an open conversation with them and ask questions. Each book will have a list of prompt questions you can ask to help you get started. The Library of People will feature a diverse group of ‘books’ covering various nationalities, stages of career development, activities and roles at Cochrane, and personal interests. The Library of People is a powerful tool for promoting empathy, understanding, connection, and learning. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to engage with a living book and gain new perspectives at the event! |
1:30 PM - 2:00 PM | Emergency and Critical Care: Save lives | Meeting | We hope to catch up with the latest news and discuss how to approach the future of Cochrane. |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Rapid reviews and other rapid evidence products 2 | Oral session | |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Diagnostic Test Accuracy and prognostic evidence | Oral session | |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Communicating evidence, misinformation and research transparency | Oral session | |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Living evidence and prospective meta-analyses | Oral session | |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | The Art of Getting By: Influencing skills - Communication and Negotiation | Skills Lab | This session on influencing skills explores a model of communication that allows you to handle criticism, including harassment and bullying language, managing yourself in an interview, in an exam, writing an academic paper, and in everyday communication. The session on negotiation looks at how to get better outcomes when negotiating. This is linked to the session The Art of Getting By: Leadership and Team Working Styles on Tuesday 5th September at 16.00-17.30, but can also be attended as a stand-alone session. Both sessions will be employing simple "heuristics" - ways of understanding complex situations and making better choices. They are so simple you can keep them in your head. The skills are generic, and you can employ them in your private life as well as your working life. You will even return home with a couple of heuristics to try out the same evening! |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Moving the Cochrane-WHO partnership forward: current and future activities and how to get involved | Special Session | Cochrane has been a ‘non-state actor in official relations’ with the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2011. The partnership is one of Cochrane’s largest and most impactful: around 76% of new guidelines issued by WHO in 2021 were informed by evidence from Cochrane Reviews. Discussions for a new programme of work will commence in the third quarter of 2023, so it is timely to revisit and renew the relationship between the two organizations. This session intends to update participants on the status of Cochrane’s existing collaboration with WHO and on the organization’s current and future priorities. It is also a chance for participants to hear from WHO representatives about opportunities to engage directly in this partnership, which ultimately aims to improve global health outcomes by ensuring health and care decisions are informed by trusted and timely evidence. After a brief introduction to the Cochrane-WHO collaboration and a short keynote from a WHO representative on current organizational priorities, the session will highlight key topics for discussion including: the use of rapid, living and curated evidence (and associated methods and innovative technologies) to inform WHO global guidance and ensure it remains up to date; expanding guidance and infrastructure to support better clinical trials and the reporting of their results; support for expanding areas of WHO’s work, such as evidence relating to traditional medicine; and how to build or strengthen relationships with specific WHO departments, as well as regional and country offices. An open discussion will then follow. WHO guidance has a direct impact on the lives of billions of people worldwide. The primary activity of the Cochrane-WHO partnership is to ensure that WHO is able to draw on rigorously assessed, trusted and timely evidence for use in this guidance. Patients and consumers are encouraged to join the session. Target audience: Anyone interested in the Cochrane-WHO partnership Format: Presentation, panel discussion, open discussion with audience |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Undertaking overview of systematic reviews – methods, challenges and the way forward (as identified by a group of clinical academics and methodologists who recently figured it all out) | Workshop - discussion | Background: Overviews of systematic reviews (hereinafter referred to as ‘overviews’) are increasingly being used for the synthesis of evidence where the subject areas are broad and the evidence is rapidly expanding. Despite methodological advances and development of methodological guidelines, experience in their adoption is limited and many challenges remain. This proposed workshop will provide a forum for participants to learn more about methodological development in undertaking overviews and to share practical experiences.
Cochrane Colloquium 2023 Overview of systematic review workshop plan v5.docx |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Preparing for submitting your manuscript to the Cochrane’s Central Editorial Service for Peer Review – observations from the Central Editorial Service Quality Assurance Team | Workshop - training | Background:
Cochrane has recently been moving towards a Central Editorial Service that clearly separates review development roles (e.g., authoring/author support) from the editorial roles in the evidence synthesis production model. As part of this process, the Cochrane Central Editorial Service sends every Cochrane review for consumer, clinical, search, and methods peer review prior to publication. This robust process ensures that Cochrane reviews are accurate, reliable, and usable. However, the editorial process is often delayed, or the manuscript is rejected because methodological and reporting issues are identified during peer review. Authors and editors should be aware of the most common errors noted during the methods peer review process to help them identify, rectify, and ultimately avoid making these errors.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Introduction to the RoB 2 tool for assessing risk of bias in a randomized trial | Workshop - training | Background: Randomized trials provide evidence about the effects of healthcare interventions. However, trial results can be undermined by flaws in design, conduct, analyses and selective reporting. Therefore, assessments of risk of bias in results of the included randomized trials are mandatory in Cochrane systematic reviews. The revised risk of bias tool (RoB 2), published in 2019, is the recommended method for doing this.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | EPPI-Reviewer: review-production software that adapts to your needs | Workshop - training | Background:
EPPI-Reviewer has been part of the Cochrane ecosystem of tools since 2015 and is available free of charge for Cochrane reviews; its role is to facilitate the review production of complex reviews. Unlike other software supporting review production phases, EPPI-Reviewer is designed with flexibility in mind and includes a wide range of cutting-edge machine learning and data services. EPPI-Reviewer is also a methodological research tool: its flexibility allows and facilitates methodological research and innovation; our current research focuses on enabling automation on the search and screening phases, integrating them both in ways that are specifically designed to support workflows for “living” systematic reviews. The same underlying technologies are expected to also drive significant innovations regarding data reuse and discoverability.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | What does good co-production in evidence synthesis look and feel like? | Workshop - training | Background: There is increasing interest in incorporating co-production in systematic reviews. However, there has been a lack of a unifying definition of co-production and the absence of a single definition can lead to ‘conceptual stretching’ and even misuse of the term. Rather than focus on a single definition, in this workshop, we consider the values that underpin co-production, including being human, inclusive, transparent and challenging, and how they can be enacted within evidence synthesis. |
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | How to plan and implement synthesis questions (part 2): Implementing PICO in RevMan to streamline data extraction and analyses | Workshop - training | Participants will need to bring their own laptop.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | GRADE target of certainty rating and implications for judgements regarding imprecision | Workshop - training | Objectives: This workshop will introduce participants to the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations (GRADE) guidance on choosing targets of certainty of evidence and its implication on rating imprecision of evidence.
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2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Comparing multiple interventions with network meta-analysis | Workshop - training | Background: Standard meta-analysis methods for clinical trials focus on comparisons of two interventions, such as a drug versus placebo or a new intervention versus standard practice. In clinical practice, there are rarely only two interventions under consideration. Extensions of meta-analysis to address three or more treatments have been the subject of much methodological research in recent years and are increasingly being applied. Most simply, indirect comparisons can be performed in ways that respect the randomization within each clinical trial. More complex forms are the so-called network meta-analyses, also known as multiple treatments meta-analyses or mixed treatment comparison meta-analyses. These allow the simultaneous analysis of clinical trials involving different treatments.
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3:30 PM - 4:00 PM | Break | Coffee break | |
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Cochrane Lecture / Closing Plenary | Plenary | Forward together for trusted evidence Given the ever-growing potential for misinformation and disinformation in an interconnected world, the need for trusted evidence has never been greater. As we navigate a post-COVID-19 pandemic world, evolving data and technological opportunities, and the reality of change, ensuring that the evidence that informs health and care decisions is timely, trusted and relevant will be an ongoing challenge. This Cochrane Lecture explores a framework for sustaining and promoting trusted evidence that not only withstands scrutiny but actively guides informed decision-making by addressing emerging needs through a continuous feedback loop between evidence producers and users. The lecture will emphasise the importance of the interlinked pillars of relevance, equity, integrity, transparency, and rigour underpinned by collaboration between stakeholders and researchers as we journey forward together embracing diverse perspectives, experience and expertise to co-produce and deliver evidence that is not only trusted but makes a difference for patients and the public globally. Cochrane's annual prizes and awards will be presented at the end of the session. |
11:05 AM - 11:15 AM | Assessment of trustworthiness has a significant impact on conclusions of Cochrane reviews | Research integrity, transparency and fraud | Background:
There is increasing concern that a significant proportion of randomised trials included in Cochrane reviews may not be trustworthy. Applying a Trustworthiness Screening Tool (TST) has already had a clinically important effect on several reviews published by the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group.
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11:05 AM - 11:25 AM | Can we use GRADE to create new diagnostic criteria for a condition? An application of GRADE principles for establishing diagnostic criteria for a disease | Assessing evidence certainty | Background:
Although it is critical to consider downstream consequences of changing disease definitions and to avoid the perils of overdiagnosis, disease definitions and diagnostic criteria are sometimes required to be developed, modified, or updated. In 2021, a group in Australia was tasked with updating the guideline for the diagnosis and assessment of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. However, there is currently no universally agreed approach to developing diagnostic criteria or assessment guidelines.
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11:05 AM - 11:25 AM | Operationalising decolonisation in systematic reviews: can current tools help to mitigate for bias? | Global health, equity, diversity and inclusion | Background:
Decolonisation of research methods refers to the undoing of colonial ideologies within academic thinking and broadening critical and theoretical positions within methodological approaches to address power imbalances and inherent biases. Trust in systematic reviews is underpinned by transparency, rigour, and objectivity at all stages of the review process. Frameworks, such as GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations) and GRADE-CERQual (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research), aim to improve transparency surrounding certainty or confidence in the evidence. A key element of these tools is to assess the overall directness or relevance of the synthesis findings to examine whether they offer a ‘restricted’ answer to the review question because of the populations, interventions, comparators, or outcomes studied. Application of GRADE and CerQual could therefore be used to identify underrepresentation of important ethnic groups or marginalised populations in research.
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11:05 AM - 11:25 AM | Evidence gap maps: a visual tool for promoting evidence and monitoring gaps in research | Mapping evidence | Background: Evidence Gap Maps (EGMs) are visual tools that present the available evidence on different thematic areas and highlight gaps for future research. EGMs, constructed by international Non-governmental Organisation Sightsavers, summarize, appraise, and present evidence from systematic or literature reviews across different eye health conditions, including cataract, refractive error, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and trachoma. Updating an EGM periodically allows us to monitor changes to the extent and quality of the evidence base and to refine the focus for future research. This presentation will focus on the methods used to develop and update the EGMs and discuss their potential in promoting rigorous, high-quality research and countering misinformation. |
11:05 AM - 11:25 AM | Unravelling active ingredients of task-shifting interventions in low-resource settings for common mental disorders: developing a taxonomy of intervention components and ranking their efficacy. | Network Meta-analysis | Background: The global burden associated with common mental disorders is high, especially for people living in low resource settings. Although psychosocial interventions delivered by locally available lay or community health workers are effective, mechanisms of intervention response are poorly understood. One of the greatest barriers is that psychosocial interventions are administered as complex, multi-component “packages of care”. |
11:15 AM - 11:25 AM | Prospective trial registration in the Research Integrity Assessment (RIA) of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) | Research integrity, transparency and fraud | Background:
The WHO and the Declaration of Helsinki require that every clinical study must be prospectively registered in a publicly accessible study registry (i.e., registration before enrolling the first patient). However, most evidence syntheses ignore violations of this fundamental moral and ethical principle. The Research Integrity Assessment (RIA) (doi:10.1002/jrsm.1599), a tool to assess adherence of randomized-controlled trials (RCTs) to the principles of Good Clinical Practice, and key elements of research integrity in clinical trials, assesses prospective registration and may help evidence synthesis authors to deal with studies which do not comply with the requirements. RIA was piloted in the updated Cochrane review “Ivermectin for preventing and treating COVID-19” revealing that lack of prospective registration was the most frequent reason for the exclusion of studies according to RIA.
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11:25 AM - 11:35 AM | Impact of Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) on conclusions of dentistry systematic reviews | Assessing evidence certainty | Background:
The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach assesses certainty of evidence (CoE) in a systematic review (SR) and facilitates drawing appropriate conclusions that consider limitations of the evidence. However, GRADE is not widely used in dentistry SRs.
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11:25 AM - 11:35 AM | Missing and masked: equity in a systematic review of remote interventions for substance misuse. | Global health, equity, diversity and inclusion | Background: To reduce inequity, knowing whether interventions ‘work’ is not enough; we also need to know whether vulnerable subgroups experience them differently. However, vulnerable groups may not have equal opportunity to participate in research and, hence, may be underrepresented or missing entirely. Unless study findings are reported by subgroup, any differences among those included will be masked.
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11:25 AM - 11:35 AM | Mapping the Maps: Methods and Uses of Evidence and Gap Maps. | Mapping evidence | Background: Evidence and Gap Maps (EGMs) sit within a family of evidence synthesis methods that seek to address broader research questions. EGMs are a valuable tool in which a wider understanding is needed of existing research in a topic area and locating evidence gaps. They do not synthesise existing evidence, but by locating, categorizing, coding, and presenting the evidence in an interactive web based tool, with links to the primary research, they offer a valuable visualisation of existing evidence. Their popularity is growing, and they are particularly valued by policy makers. |
11:25 AM - 11:35 AM | An assessment of the design-by-treatment interaction model for network meta-analysis inconsistency | Network Meta-analysis | Background: Network meta-analysis (NMA) is a powerful method that simultaneously synthesizes evidence from studies addressing the same clinical question comparing multiple interventions. The method allows inferences based on direct and indirect comparisons in a network. However, NMA results are reliable only when the prerequisite assumptions are met. Of interest, the consistency assumption requires that direct and indirect evidence in a network is in agreement. The design-by-treatment (DBT) interaction model is considered the best method to date; however, its statistical properties have not been well studied for complex networks. |
11:25 AM - 11:35 AM | The implementation of policy to manage potentially problematic studies in Cochrane review updates – a meta-epidemiological study | Research integrity, transparency and fraud | Background:
Cochrane reviews are regularly updated to reflect the most up-to-date evidence on health interventions. In 2021, Cochrane introduced a new policy to manage potentially problematic studies that are eligible for inclusion in a Cochrane review. This includes the management of studies with retractions, expressions of concern, and concerns about the trustworthiness of the data. It remains unclear how well such a policy is implemented for published Cochrane review updates.
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11:35 AM - 11:45 AM | Challenges and potential solutions for reporting findings from multicomponent meta-regression models in GRADE summary of findings tables | Assessing evidence certainty | Background: We recently completed a Cochrane review of diabetes quality improvement (QI) trials that aimed to identify promising QI strategies (or combinations of strategies) to deploy in practice or examine in future research. We coded interventions according to the presence of absence of 12 QI strategies and assessed the association between intervention components and postintervention outcomes with Bayesian meta-regressions. This is atypical for a Cochrane review—our analysis and output do not match the usual Cochrane processes—and thus necessitated adjustments in our reporting of results to align with Cochrane procedures.
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11:35 AM - 11:45 AM | How well do we consider equity in efficiency analysis studies of vaccines? A systematic review of equity-informative economic evaluations of vaccines | Global health, equity, diversity and inclusion | Background:
The Immunization Agenda 2030 prioritizes the populations without access to vaccines. Health equity has been increasingly incorporated into economic evaluations of vaccines to foster equitable access. Robust and standardized methods are needed to evaluate health equity impact of vaccination programs to ensure monitoring and effective addressing of inequities. However, methods currently vary and potentially affect the application of findings to inform policy decision-making.
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11:35 AM - 11:45 AM | Mapping Reviews, Scoping Reviews and Evidence and Gap Maps (EGMs) – Same but Different. The ‘Big Picture’ Review Family | Mapping evidence | Background: Scoping reviews, mapping reviews and evidence and gap maps (EGMs) are evidence synthesis methodologies that address broad research questions, aiming to describe a bigger picture rather than address a specific question about intervention effectiveness. They are being increasingly used to support a range of purposes including guiding research priorities and decision-making. There is, however, a confusing array of terminology used to describe these different approaches. |
11:35 AM - 11:45 AM | Using arm-based network meta-analysis for binary outcomes for generalizability of findings across baseline risk values | Network Meta-analysis | Background: Differences in baseline risk (BR) across studies may be a source of heterogeneity in meta-analysis (1; see attachment for a full list of references); thus, generalizability of findings across subgroups of patients requires constancy of treatment effects across BRs (2). In the case of risk ratio (RR), its independence from BR cannot hold due to its range limitations (2). Odds ratio (OR), instead, is theoretically independent from BR (3), but this property may not hold in practice (4). Moreover, in the specific case of using OR in network meta-analysis (NMA), even factors affecting baseline risk but not conditional effect may lead to inconsistency (5). Thus, regardless of the outcome measure adopted, in the case of binary outcomes, treatment effects should be considered as likely dependent from BR. |
11:35 AM - 11:45 AM | Breaking Ground or Breaking Bad? Examining the Fate of Preprints in Prevention Research with a Mixed Methods Study | Research integrity, transparency and fraud | Background:
The availability of unsound or scientifically invalid work is a concern associated with preprint articles. The popularity of preprints in prevention research has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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11:45 AM - 11:55 AM | India covid guidelines- a living synthesis and guideline process | Assessing evidence certainty | Background:
COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact worldwide on health, healthcare, societies, and economies. Evidence for interventions emerged rapidly but was difficult to examine systematically in a short span of time. Few guidelines used formal evidence synthesis and GRADE approaches, particularly when tailoring to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). To address this gap, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India, partnered with the Clinical Infectious Diseases Society of India (CIDS), Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group, Prof BV Moses Center for evidence-informed healthcare, and experts from 16 institutions in India and globally to form The Covid Management Guidelines India Group.
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11:45 AM - 11:55 AM | Methods used in systematic reviews to conceptualise dimensions of health equity impacts of public health interventions: umbrella review | Global health, equity, diversity and inclusion | Background:
Systematic reviews of interventions often fail to adequately consider equity. This impairs their ability to inform policy and practice decisions that aim to account for differential impacts. Central to this issue is how the dimensions of equity impacts (e.g., socioeconomic status) are conceptualised, as this shapes how equity is treated in the conduct and reporting of reviews.
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11:45 AM - 11:55 AM | A digital map of systematic reviews on non-pharmacological interventions to inform policy making in infectious disease control | Mapping evidence | Background: The COVID-19 pandemic accentuated the need for comprehensive evidence synthesis to guide decisions regarding infection disease control and preparedness. In Sweden, an investigator was tasked by the government with reviewing the Infection Control Act and analyzing the need for new regulations for future pandemics, with special considerations to measures that were effective during the COVID-19 pandemic. Against this background, SBU was requested to provide support to the investigator. |
11:45 AM - 11:55 AM | A novel modeling approach for producing treatment hierarchies in network meta-analysis | Network Meta-analysis | Background: Network meta-analysis (NMA) allows synthesising the evidence simultaneously on multiple treatments. A key output of NMA is the relative ranking of the treatments; nevertheless, it has attracted a lot of criticism. This is mainly because ranking is a very influential output and, thus, prone to over-interpretations even when relative effects imply small differences between the alternative treatments. To date, common ranking methods rely on score metrics which are calculated based on the summary effects. Such metrics lack a straightforward interpretation, although it is still unclear how to measure their uncertainty. |
11:45 AM - 11:55 AM | Comparison of effect estimates between preprints and peer-reviewed publications: a meta-epidemiological study of COVID-19 trials | Research integrity, transparency and fraud | Background: Preprints have emerged as a major source of research communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, questions were raised concerning the reliability of their results.
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11:55 AM - 12:05 PM | Using GRADE-CERQual to assess confidence in findings from qualitative evidence syntheses: how well are review authors applying the approach? | Assessing evidence certainty | Background:
Assessing how much confidence users can place in qualitative evidence synthesis (QES) findings is important for producing trusted qualitative evidence on patients’ experiences and perspectives of health issues and interventions. Applying the GRADE-CERQual approach to assess confidence in the evidence is a required step in a Cochrane QES. Use of GRADE-CERQual has increased rapidly globally.
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11:55 AM - 12:05 PM | Operationalizing the GRADE-Equity criterion to inform guideline recommendations: Application to a Medical Cannabis guideline | Global health, equity, diversity and inclusion | Background: Equity is at the forefront of clinical and public health practice and policy. The incorporation of equity in guideline recommendation requires additional considerations for development methodology. The GRADE working group proposed the consideration of equity in several stages of the guideline development process, such as applying an equity lens in the conduct of the evidence syntheses. However, there is no pragmatic guidance on how to collect evidence from systematic reviews to inform equity considerations in guideline recommendations. |
11:55 AM - 12:05 PM | Novel methods used when conducting an evidence gap map surrounding interventions for treating obstetric fistula | Mapping evidence | Background: Evidence gap maps (EGMs) are a novel approach to establishing the breadth and depth of evidence on health. Their visual nature promotes knowledge translation to key stakeholders, including patients, practitioners and policymakers. The methods used to produce EGMs are systematic and rigorous but are open to challenges owing to their emerging nature in the canon of evidence synthesis. These challenges resulted in novel methods used within the production of an EGM surrounding interventions for obstetric fistula. |
11:55 AM - 12:05 PM | Inconsistency identification in Network Meta-Analysis via Stochastic Search Variable Selection | Network Meta-analysis | Background: The reliability of the results of a network meta-analysis (NMA) lies in the plausibility of the key assumption of transitivity, which implies that the effect modifiers’ distribution is similar across treatment comparisons. Transitivity is statistically manifested through the consistency assumption, which suggests that direct and indirect evidence are in agreement. Several methods have been suggested to evaluate consistency. A common approach for testing network consistency suggests adding inconsistency factors to the NMA model. |
11:55 AM - 12:05 PM | How should we handle predatory journals in evidence synthesis? | Research integrity, transparency and fraud | Background:
Synthesizers of evidence are increasingly likely to encounter studies published in predatory journals during the evidence synthesis process. Predatory journals and the studies published within them have caused significant disruption across the scientific landscape and present unique concerns within academia. This is due to the lack of transparent editorial oversight they employ, which may increase the risk that the studies published within these journals are erroneous or fraudulent.
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12:05 PM - 12:15 PM | Applying GRADE-CERQual to interpretive review findings: Reflections from a Cochrane meta-ethnography on childhood vaccination acceptance | Assessing evidence certainty | Background:
GRADE-CERQual (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research) was developed to support the increasing use of review findings from qualitative evidence syntheses within policy and decision-making. To date, the approach has mainly been applied to aggregative synthesis methodologies and descriptive review findings. Current GRADE-CERQual guidance suggests there is a need for testing with more diverse review methods and outputs, which will provide important insights for the ongoing evolution of the approach.
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12:05 PM - 12:15 PM | Improving equity, diversity, and inclusion in Journals | Global health, equity, diversity and inclusion | Background: Journal editors are the gatekeepers of our research. With increasing evidence that Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) are beneficial to research and academia, some editors have expressed their desire to improve EDI of their journals. The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) established a minimum set of requirements aimed at improving EDI in scholarly publishing through a joint commitment action plan with more than 56 publishing organizations. There are several commitments in place to improve EDI in journals, however, their effectiveness is yet to be determined. |
12:05 PM - 12:15 PM | Working with policy makers to maximise the utility of EGMs: experiences of Exeter Policy and Research Programme Evidence Review Facility | Mapping evidence | Background: Evidence and gap maps (EGMs) are used to summarize the quantity, quality, and main characteristics of an evidence base and are an interactive resource for evidence users to identify research that meets their specific interests and requirements. EGMs are of great potential utility for health and social care policy makers who wish to gain an overview of a broad evidence base to inform decision making. However, differences in expectations and understanding of EGMs and systemic review processes between researchers and policy makers means production of EGMs and ensuring their future utility is not always straightforward. |
12:05 PM - 12:15 PM | Evaluation and development of a novel interactive Summary of Findings table for network meta-analysis. A qualitative user-testing study with clinicians | Network Meta-analysis | Background: Clinicians often need to evaluate comparative effectiveness of relevant treatment options for their patients. Network meta-analyses (NMAs) provide an important resource for clinicians to guide decision-making; however, these analyses are complex, and interpretation may prove challenging for users. |
12:05 PM - 12:25 PM | Impact of including conference abstracts in systematic reviews: analysis from a living systematic review and network meta-analysis of COVID-19 | Research integrity, transparency and fraud | Background: Summarizing all available evidence while decreasing bias raises important methodological challenges for systematic reviews (SRs). Grey literature in SRs is important for minimizing the risk of publication bias but is often inadequately reported, which may reduce the credibility of the evidence synthesis.
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12:15 PM - 12:25 PM | Incorporating Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion into Cochrane Systematic Reviews with AI | Global health, equity, diversity and inclusion | Background: Cochrane systematic reviews are a valuable source of evidence-based information for healthcare decision-making. However, it is important to ensure that the analysis of these reviews considers equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) to represent diverse populations better and address disparities in health outcomes.
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12:15 PM - 12:25 PM | The concept of “evidence relevant to” in the rehabilitation field: post COVID-19 condition mapping for the World Health Organization Guidance | Mapping evidence | Background: In the current absence of direct “evidence on” rehabilitation interventions for people with symptoms of post-COVID-19 condition (PCC), we can search and synthesize the indirect “evidence relevant to” coming from interventions effective for these symptoms in other health conditions. The World Health Organization (WHO) required this information to inform expert teams and provide specific recommendations in their Guidelines. So we defined “evidence relevant to” as the synthesis of evidence focusing on the rehabilitative management of impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions, informed by different health conditions presenting with similar symptoms. |
2:05 PM - 2:15 PM | Beyond Statistical Significance: Investigating How Systematic Review Authors Communicate Meaningful Differences of Nonsignificant Results | Statistical methods | Background: For decades, statisticians and methodologists have severely criticized the undue reliance on strict p-value thresholds (usually 0.05) and the misinterpretation of statistical significance in medical research. Despite legitimate criticism, primary research and systematic reviews continue to rely heavily on statistical significance without taking a nuanced approach when interpreting nonsignificant effect estimates.
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2:05 PM - 2:25 PM | Maximizing collaboration between university students and Cochrane | Capacity building in evidence synthesis | Background:
Conducting Cochrane reviews can be challenging. These reviews are often carried out by healthcare professionals and experienced researchers because of their complexity and associated workload. University students must complete a research project to obtain an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. Thus, there is a vast potential for collaboration between students and Cochrane. Cochrane is present in universities and hospitals, so one potential partnership may be the realization of end-of-degree research projects and master/PhD theses based on Cochrane activities.
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2:05 PM - 2:25 PM | The Theory of Everything in Health Decision-Making: Step 2 | Engaging stakeholders and building partnerships | Background: Clinicians, the public (including patients), policymakers, payers, regulators, and science communities invest considerable amounts of resources in making decisions at various levels using systematic reviews, health technology assessments (HTA), guideline recommendations, coverage decisions, selection of essential medicines and diagnostics, quality improvement, and policy and evidence briefs. With the World Health Organization (WHO), we have developed a conceptual approach that we call “Theory of Everything (ToE) in health decision-making” to connect the actors in this ecosystem. Our work, focusing on high-income countries, shows that criteria and methods that these actors use differ but that they frequently overlap and exist together (Schünemann et al., Lancet PH 2022). The widely used Evidence to Decision (EtD) frameworks form the connecting framework for our conceptual approach (Figure 1). This work has received broad attention, in particular by regulators, and in the guideline, HTA, and health policy community. These actors need to be linked together, and capacity is required to create interaction and decision consensus in and across jurisdictions. However, particularly in emerging economies and low and middle income countries (LMIC), the risk of sparse, redundant or conflicting decisions across the decision ecosystem may be costly. In particular, without coordination, actions by different stakeholders might contribute to decision instability and volatile national health policies.
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2:05 PM - 2:25 PM | How to rapidly review the literature when planning a new clinical trial – a practical guide | Rapid reviews and other rapid evidence products 1 | Objectives:
In preparation of a clinical trial, the existing evidence on the topic needs to be systematically reviewed to avoid research waste and to provide a rationale for the planned trial. If a current systematic review (SR) is not available, a new one should be conducted. However, such an evidence-based research approach is rarely used, and no guidance for clinical researchers exists. Therefore, we aimed 1) to develop a practical guide for clinical researchers to rapidly review the literature before starting a new trial and 2) to conduct formal usability testing of the guidance.
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2:15 PM - 2:25 PM | Is the Freeman‐Tukey double arcsine transformation a reliable approach? for proportion meta-analysis | Statistical methods | Background: Proportion meta-analyses are frequently used in epidemiology to estimate the burden of disease. They are usually based on transformed proportions using Freeman‐Tukey double arcsine transformations (FTT). Schwarzer et al. generated some controversy because they considered that this method produces seriously misleading results and proposed the generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) as a more elaborate approach.[1] However, Suhail et al., using the same set of studies, reanalyzed the data and concluded that the FTT is the most reliable approach and remains the preferred transformation in proportion meta-analysis.[2]
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2:25 PM - 2:35 PM | Characteristics, reporting, and methods of trials included in time-to-event meta-analyses of systematic reviews: A meta-epidemiological review | Statistical methods | Background:
Previous studies demonstrated limitations in the reporting of time-to-event (TTE) analyses in trial publications. The challenges that systematic review authors face in trials they include for TTE meta-analysis remain unexplored.
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2:25 PM - 2:45 PM | Creating a systematic review infrastructure: Implementing Cochrane tools for students, teachers, researchers and clinicians in a university setting | Capacity building in evidence synthesis | Background:
In 2017, Cochrane Sweden was launched, and a collaboration between the Medical Faculty, the Medical Degree (MD) Program and the Faculty Library was initiated based on a need for guidance and relevant learning activities for students, PhD students and researchers in systematic review methodology. The MD Program had defined scientific scholarship and evidence-based medicine (EBM) as core qualifications. The library and MD Program already worked together, and involving Cochrane Sweden became essential.
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2:25 PM - 2:45 PM | CEOsys – An ecosystem for COVID-19 evidence in Germany: challenges and lessons learned as a guide for future networks | Engaging stakeholders and building partnerships | Background: The COVID-19 pandemic presented a major disruption worldwide. Given the extensive, rapidly evolving evidence, high-quality evidence syntheses that provide context-sensitive and up-to-date data were urgently needed as a basis for evidence-informed clinical and public health decision-making. CEOsys (‘COVID-19 evidence ecosystem’) was established as a national German network for living systematic reviews (LSRs) and living guidelines.
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2:25 PM - 2:45 PM | Identifying high priority methodological questions for conducting rapid systematic reviews: Preliminary results from an eDelphi study | Rapid reviews and other rapid evidence products 1 | Background: Rapid systematic reviews (RRs) are a useful tool to provide healthcare decision-makers with the most up-to-date scientific evidence. Yet there remains much uncertainty about the most effective and efficient methods for carrying out RRs. In fact, there is even uncertainty about which are the main methodological concerns for RRs. |
2:35 PM - 2:45 PM | Comparison of statistical methods used to meta-analyse results from interrupted time series studies: an empirical study | Statistical methods | Background:
The interrupted time series (ITS) design is commonly used to evaluate large-scale policy change or public health interventions when randomisation is infeasible. In ITS studies, measurements are collected at regular intervals before and after an interruption. The pre-interruption period is used to estimate an underlying time trend that, when projected into the post-interruption period, creates a counterfactual for what would have occurred without the interruption. The impact of the interruption can then be quantified using a variety of metrics such as immediate and long-term effects. Several statistical methods are available for the analysis and meta-analysis of ITS studies. However, there has been no empirical evaluation of the impact of using different statistical methods to analyse ITS studies and meta-analyse their results.
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2:45 PM - 2:55 PM | The role of collaborative evidence networks in promoting and supporting evidence-based health care (EBHC) globally | Engaging stakeholders and building partnerships | Background: The success of the global evidence-based healthcare (EBHC) agenda depends on individuals and organisations working together within a functioning evidence ecosystem. Collaborative evidence networks like JBI, Cochrane, Campbell and others, although differing in form and function, were all established with a common goal: to collaboratively produce, summarise and disseminate evidence to inform policy and practice to improve lives. Over the past 30 years, with the rise of digital technology, increasing recognition of the importance of evidence-based decision-making and the evolution of network structures, these networks have become central to the way evidence is synthesised, translated and implemented, yet little has been written about their strategic development or management.
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2:45 PM - 2:55 PM | Risk factors for abstracts falsely excluded during single-reviewer screening – a methods study | Rapid reviews and other rapid evidence products 1 | Background:
Because of the growing need to provide evidence syntheses under time constraints, recent research has explored rapid review methods, which often employ single-reviewer literature screening. However, the single-reviewer screening process is error-prone; on average, 13% of relevant studies are missed. To date, it is unclear whether certain types of studies or publications have a higher risk of being falsely excluded than others.
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2:45 PM - 2:55 PM | Effect estimates can be accurately calculated with data digitally extracted from interrupted time series graphs | Statistical methods | Background:
Interrupted time series (ITS) studies are frequently used to examine the impact of population-level interventions. Systematic reviews with meta-analyses including ITS designs may inform public health and policy decision-making. Reanalysis of ITS may be required for inclusion in meta-analysis. Although publications of ITS rarely provide raw data for reanalysis, graphs are often included, from which time series data can be digitally extracted. However, the accuracy of effect estimates calculated from data digitally extracted from ITS graphs is currently unknown.
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2:45 PM - 3:05 PM | Building capacity in producing trusted evidence – Evidence Synthesis Ireland and Cochrane Ireland Fellowships | Capacity building in evidence synthesis | Background:
Evidence Synthesis Ireland (ESI), which includes Cochrane Ireland, aims to build evidence synthesis knowledge, awareness and capacity among the public, healthcare institutions, policymakers, clinicians and researchers on the island of Ireland. One way we do this is through the ESI Fellowship Scheme, launched in January 2019.
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2:55 PM - 3:05 PM | Knowledge mobilisation of rapid reviews to inform health and care policy and practice: lessons from the Wales COVID-19 Evidence Centre | Engaging stakeholders and building partnerships | Background:
Policy and practice decisions must be evidence-based, but ensuring that research evidence is readily available and used by decision-makers is challenging. This was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when knowledge mobilisation strategies to bridge the gap between evidence synthesis and informing decisions were critical. The Wales COVID-19 Evidence Centre (WCEC) was set up to ensure that health and social care policy and practice decision-makers had timely access to relevant COVID-19 research evidence.
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2:55 PM - 3:05 PM | Machine-learning assisted screening increases efficiency of systematic review | Rapid reviews and other rapid evidence products 1 | Background: Conventional systematic review (SR) methods are time-consuming and highly resource intensive. Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms such as machine learning and deep learning can help reviewers complete these tasks in less time and with fewer resources. PICO Portal (PP) is an AI-assisted SR platform that prioritizes articles for screening using several algorithms including both decision tree and deep learning models.
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2:55 PM - 3:05 PM | Is a new approach for rating the quality evidence of effect estimates derived from matched-adjusted indirect comparisons (MAIC) needed? | Statistical methods | Background: In health technology assessments (HTAs), matching-adjusted indirect comparisons (MAICs) are used when head-to-head randomised studies comparing a drug (therapy) in question and a comparator, e.g., standard care in the treatment of a disease, are not available. MAICs use individual patient data (IPD) from trials of one treatment to match baseline summary statistics reported from trials of another treatment. MAICs use an approach similar to propensity score weighting, whereby treatment outcomes are compared across balanced trial populations. Although the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) and Confidence in Network Meta-Analysis (CINeMA) approaches to rate the quality of treatment effect estimates from network meta-analysis (NMA) have been suggested, it seems that an approach for MAICs is missing.
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3:05 PM - 3:15 PM | Providing evidence to the WHO, the experience of Cochrane Rehabilitation regarding the Rehabilitation 2030 initiative and the COVID-19 pandemic | Engaging stakeholders and building partnerships | Background:
Shortly after the launch of Cochrane Rehabilitation in December 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched “Rehabilitation 2030: a call for action” with the aim to strengthen and upscale rehabilitation services in health systems worldwide in response to the growing needs. Cochrane Rehabilitation collaborated with the WHO Rehabilitation Programme in several projects on rehabilitation interventions, in the framework of Rehabilitation 2030 and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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3:05 PM - 3:15 PM | Rapid reviews, how much do they comply with Cochrane recommendations in their methodology to provide reliable evidence? | Rapid reviews and other rapid evidence products 1 | Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, a large increase in rapid reviews (RRs) was identified. This is mainly because the design appears as an alternative to provide timely and rapid responses to emerging issues. RRs follow the method of systematic reviews, but they simplify or omit some steps to shorten the length of time in which the review is conducted.
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3:05 PM - 3:15 PM | Using simple microsimulation to estimate risk difference from a meta-analysis | Statistical methods | Background:
Absolute risk reduction or risk difference (RD) is a key effect measure required for decision-making and its confidence interval (CI) is the basis for imprecision judgments. Many methodology groups (e.g., Cochrane and GRADE) recommend obtaining RD from linear transformation of a risk ratio (RR) that is usually derived from a meta-analysis. This transformation uses an assumed baseline risk (BR) and follows the equation RD= RR X (RR-1). The 95% CI of RD is derived from the same equation using the 95% CI of RR.
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3:05 PM - 3:25 PM | Evidence Based Research Training School | Capacity building in evidence synthesis | Background and objectives:
The overall aim of the training school (TS) is to introduce to the participants the concept of Evidence Based Research (EBR) and support their ability to use existing evidence synthesis to justify, design and place results of the new study in the context of existing knowledge in order to avoid redundant research.
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3:15 PM - 3:25 PM | Boosting global and local partnerships to promote equitable access of COVID-19 guideline recommendations: case study in China | Engaging stakeholders and building partnerships | Background: The eCOVID19 Recommendations Map and Gateway to Contextualization (RecMap) is a living platform presenting 7280 guideline recommendations. Funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), RecMap involves the collaboration of over 40 partner organisations globally and has launched a knowledge mobilisation (KM) project to benefit wider stakeholders in different countries.
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3:15 PM - 3:25 PM | Evaluation of the Interim Cochrane Rapid Review Methods guidance – a mixed-methods study on the understanding of and adherence to the guidance | Rapid reviews and other rapid evidence products 1 | Objectives:
The Cochrane Rapid Review Methods Group (RRMG) developed interim guidance to support authors in conducting rapid reviews (RRs). The objective of this mixed-methods study was to assess the adherence to and usability of this guidance. We also explored why some Cochrane authors of COVID-19–related reviews preferred doing a full systematic review (SR) over an RR (see published protocol: https://osf.io/3a8zb).
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3:15 PM - 3:25 PM | Less Ethical Challenges, More Trial Compliance: Progress and Methodological Elements of Zelen's Design | Statistical methods | Background:
Classical randomized controlled trials often meet difficulties in enrollment and compliance due to subjects’ preference for the randomization scheme. Zelen’s design can largely resolve these issues through randomizing subjects before informing stage.
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4:05 PM - 4:25 PM | The Central Editorial Service: who we are, what we do, and what happens to your draft after submission | Editorial processes and supporting review authors | Background: Cochrane has embarked on an important change programme to transform the way that we produce high-quality, independent and timely evidence. By 31 March 2024, the editorial process for all submitted protocols, reviews and updates will be managed centrally by the Central Editorial Service.
Colloquium 2023 Abstract - Central Editorial Service Oral Presentation.pdf |
4:05 PM - 4:25 PM | Developing capacity for the production and use of Living Evidence in decision making: The LE to Inform Health decisions project. | Engaging stakeholders, building capacity, developing partnerships | Background: It is necessary to invest in strategies that allow groups and organizations in charge of developing evidence synthesis to inform clinical or health policy decisions and effectively incorporate new emergent evidence in the development of knowledge transfer (KT) products such as clinical practice guidelines (CPG), health technology assessment (HTA), and structured evidence summaries.
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4:05 PM - 4:25 PM | Misinformation in COVID-19: nimble innovation within Cochrane to appraise the source | Knowledge translation | Background:
During COVID-19, the public was put in danger by erroneous beliefs derived from poor-quality research amplified through social media.
In the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group (CIDG), we needed to be innovative with methods to address COVID-19 misinformation. Here, we will present this evolving response, leading to an approach to appraise research that caused unsubstantiated hypotheses. In this process, we adapted Cochrane methods to appraise comparative serological studies.
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4:05 PM - 4:25 PM | TRIPOD-SRMA: Reporting guideline for transparent reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of prediction model studies | Methodological and reporting quality | Background:
Systematic reviews (SRs) and meta-analyses (MAs) of prediction model studies range in breadth and can aim to identify, appraise and summarise the evidence about existing models and their predictive performance. They differ in many important ways from SRs of intervention studies. Emphasis is on predictive performance of models obtained from internal or external validation, rather than effect sizes. Although TRIPOD provides guidance for reporting primary prediction model studies and PRISMA 2020 is available for SRs of interventions, there is currently no tailored guideline for reporting SRs of prediction model studies.
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4:05 PM - 4:25 PM | Incorporating data from atypical experimental study designs in systematic reviews: experiences from Cochrane Infectious Diseases | Non-randomised studies and mixed methods | Background:
For ethical, logistical and cost-related reasons, studies examining interventions to prevent occurrence and transmission of infectious diseases often use atypical experimental designs. Analysis methods for these study designs may be established, but inclusion of data from these studies in systematic reviews often raises unique challenges, which methodological experts at Cochrane Infectious Diseases must overcome by determining appropriate analysis approaches.
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4:25 PM - 4:35 PM | Enhancing capacity for network meta-analysis in Sub-Saharan Africa | Engaging stakeholders, building capacity, developing partnerships | Background:
The use of network meta-analysis (NMA) in systematic reviews (SRs) of effects is increasing. Despite skilled researchers and biostatisticians in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with access to formal training in evidence synthesis, there is limited training in NMA.
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4:25 PM - 4:35 PM | Message Lab – a platform for research and improvement of public health messages | Knowledge translation | Relevance and importance to patients:
The aim of the Message Lab is to help improve how evidence-based public health messages are communicated, so that the messages and underlying research are informative and correctly understood by patients and the public.
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4:25 PM - 4:45 PM | The Cochrane Evidence Pipeline: transforming the way we identify evidence | Editorial processes and supporting review authors | Background:
The Evidence Pipeline seeks to transform study identification for Cochrane and other evidence synthesis producers (see Figure). Research enters the Evidence Pipeline and goes through tailored workflows involving crowdsourcing and machine learning, working together to produce accurate, reliable metadata about studies. The Evidence Pipeline has been applied at both the review level and at the repository level. At the review level, a workflow called Screen4Me helps to reduce author screening burden through assessment of title-abstract records; at the repository level, studies relevant for Cochrane’s Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) or the Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register (CCSR) are identified using Crowd and machine, helping to keep these important resources up to date.
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4:25 PM - 4:45 PM | Do Cochrane and non-Cochrane editors and authors prefer reporting statements based on statistically significant differences or do they prefer non-binary options? | Methodological and reporting quality | Background:
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4:25 PM - 4:45 PM | Non-randomised studies of interventions in systematic reviews – Limitations and opportunities illustrated with an exemplary review on COVID-19 vaccination in children | Non-randomised studies and mixed methods | Background:
Systematic reviews (SRs) of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) often provide the highest certainty evidence for decision-making. However, if RCTs are not available to inform specific health questions, other study designs should be considered. This includes nonrandomised studies of interventions (NRSIs), which are frequently used in the field of vaccination.
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4:35 PM - 4:45 PM | Partnerships for practice improvement: JBI's collaborative approach to developing evidence-based point-of-care resources | Engaging stakeholders, building capacity, developing partnerships | Background: Developing clinically relevant, trustworthy, evidence-based resources to connect research to practice and assist with informing clinical decision-making is central to the improvement of healthcare outcomes. Development of such resources requires a multifaceted, coordinated, collaborative partnership approach. JBI has established a unique framework to engage and collaborate with key stakeholders across 32 specialty field areas to develop rigorous, up-to-date, clinically relevant evidence-based resources to inform clinical practice. Objective: To describe and discuss the JBI framework for collaborative partnership for practice improvement within the core activities of the JBI Transfer Science program. |
4:35 PM - 4:45 PM | Highlights and challenges of co-creating evidence-based knowledge translation tools for parents about the COVID-19 pandemic | Knowledge translation | Background: The COVID-19 pandemic presented an unprecedented need for trusted evidence. We have an established program to co-create knowledge translation (KT) tools for parents and families that merge the best available research evidence with parent experiences to support decision-making for their children’s health. We received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to conduct qualitative research to identify parents’ experiences and information needs related to the pandemic and to co-create six KT tools.
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4:45 PM - 4:55 PM | Unlocking innovations for sharing and using Cochrane content with study centric data management and a focused review article | Editorial processes and supporting review authors | Background:
Cochrane was founded in 1993 and has grown into a global network producing gold standard evidence syntheses. Over those years we have been doing things in the same way and during that time the field has evolved. To maintain our place as one of the world’s leaders in producing trusted evidence, we are making some big changes in 2023.
Reviews will be shorter. Users of evidence are best served by a more focused article. This also makes writing and updating reviews simpler as you do not need to make changes in multiple places. The main body of the review will contain sections that are most useful to users of Cochrane evidence, with a clearer distinction between the main article and supplementary materials.
With a shorter review, we are moving the structure to where it is needed most: the data. This change is powered by moving to study centric data management in RevMan, which comes with a host of benefits for authors. By improving the structure of data associated with Cochrane reviews, we can increase their impact by making it easier for policy makers, guideline developers, and others to reuse our evidence.
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4:45 PM - 4:55 PM | Driving the evidence-based healthcare agenda forward: a qualitative reflexive thematic analysis of global health partnerships | Engaging stakeholders, building capacity, developing partnerships | Background: The global evidence community has long recognised that collaboration is key to producing trustworthy, pragmatic evidence. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for partnerships in developing rapid evidence-informed responses, streamlining global efforts, reducing research waste and ensuring the best-available evidence is accessible, transparent and understood. There is, however, growing concern about making partnerships equitable for—and beneficial to—all partners. Although collaboration has increased, vested interests, bureaucracy and inability to adapt remain limiting factors. The campaign for World Evidence-Based Healthcare (EBHC) Day 2022 focused on ‘partnerships for purpose’ within and across the global evidence ecosystem, calling on the global evidence community to share their experiences through blog submissions around the formation, development, maintenance, evaluation and outcomes of partnerships in EBHC. |
4:45 PM - 4:55 PM | Stakeholder involvement for investigating communication-based interventions to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake | Knowledge translation | Background:
Long-awaited COVID-19 vaccines are effective in preventing severe COVID-19 disease. However, vaccine hesitancy, identified as one of the top 10 threats to global health by the WHO, has proven to be an important issue in the COVID-19 pandemic.
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4:45 PM - 4:55 PM | Methodological and reporting quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in dermatology: a cross-sectional study | Methodological and reporting quality | Background: There has been an increasing number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in dermatology over the past decade, however the quality of these studies is unknown.
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4:45 PM - 4:55 PM | Supplementing Systematic Review Evidence with Health System Data: A Target Trial Emulation of Triptan in Migraine Patients with Increased Cardiovascular Risk | Non-randomised studies and mixed methods | Background: A recent framework from the US Evidence-based Practice Centers advises that when evidence from systematic reviews is deemed insufficient for decision-making, electronic health record (EHR) data from health systems should be considered to fill the knowledge gap. A 2021 systematic review demonstrated that triptans improved pain and function for acute migraine attacks. However, the systematic review identified insufficient evidence about patients with increased risk of cardiovascular events who were often excluded from clinical trials.
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4:55 PM - 5:05 PM | Updating the web-based "Right Review" tool: an international Delphi process | Editorial processes and supporting review authors | Background:
A diverse range of evidence synthesis approaches have been developed to meet end users’ (such as policy makers) knowledge needs. Examples include systematic reviews, rapid reviews, scoping reviews, realist reviews, network meta-analysis, meta-narrative reviews, and meta-synthesis. For researchers and those commissioning reviews, choosing the most appropriate method may be confusing. “Right Review” is a web-based decision support tool that guides users through a series of simple questions for recommending evidence synthesis methods suitable for their research question. Currently, the tool separates quantitative reviews and qualitative evidence synthesis.
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4:55 PM - 5:05 PM | Opioid use disorder treatment in Canada: knowledge sharing between regionalized networks | Engaging stakeholders, building capacity, developing partnerships | Background: Opioid agonist therapy (OAT), typically involving buprenorphine or methadone as pharmacotherapy, is an effective treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) and is a key response to growing opioid-related harms in Canada. OAT delivery in Canada varies between provinces/territories, including differences in prescribing requirements and primary care involvement. For provinces/territories that aim to improve OAT delivery, knowledge of other jurisdictions’ policies, expected outcomes, and how they have been influenced by political, sociocultural, and health system factors, can inform clinical and policy decision-making. |
4:55 PM - 5:05 PM | Bringing Cochrane reviews to Polish professionals and consumers | Knowledge translation | Background: Improving health literacy and increasing the use of reliable health information may reduce vulnerability to unreliable health-related information. Health professionals may help in translating the knowledge to nonprofessionals, but they often find it challenging.
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4:55 PM - 5:05 PM | Methodological quality of systematic reviews on Chinese herbal medicine: a methodological survey | Methodological and reporting quality | Background: Systematic reviews (SRs) synthesise the best evidence of effectiveness and safety on Chinese herbal medicine (CHM). Decision-making should be supported by the high-quality evidence of prudently conducted SRs, but the trustworthiness of conclusions may be limited by poor methodological rigour. |
4:55 PM - 5:05 PM | Use and methodology of framework synthesis in mixed-methods literature reviews | Non-randomised studies and mixed methods | Background: Framework synthesis (FS) is a method for synthesis of qualitative research in systematic reviews (SRs), which is being increasingly utilised to synthesise data from diverse sources to explore complex healthcare issues. While published guidance on conducting mixed-methods SRs and qualitative FS is available, there is little consensus on conducting mixed-methods FS.
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5:05 PM - 5:15 PM | The Systematic Review Toolbox: an updated resource to support evidence synthesis | Editorial processes and supporting review authors | Background: In 2014, the Systematic Review (SR) Toolbox was developed to gather tools that could support researchers undertaking an SR. As the breadth of evidence synthesis methodologies have expanded greatly since this time, we updated the SR Toolbox in 2022 to reflect these developments. We also analysed the software tools and guidance within the SR Toolbox at the time to identify gaps that could potentially be filled by new tools and guidance in future.
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5:05 PM - 5:15 PM | Global evidence, local adaptation (GELA): Enhancing evidence-informed guideline recommendations for newborn and young child health in three countries in sub-Saharan Africa | Engaging stakeholders, building capacity, developing partnerships | Background: Despite progress in the health of newborns and children, most countries in sub-Saharan Africa have not met the Sustainable Development Goals for under-five mortality. Consequences of COVID-19 are being felt on health systems and services, further hampering healthcare delivery to children alongside growing poverty, hunger and inequity. Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are needed to bridge the gap between research evidence and practice directly impacting patient care, health system funding and access to health services. |
5:05 PM - 5:15 PM | Abstracts of Cochrane reviews are getting longer, but this has no large impact on the reporting quality. | Knowledge translation | Background:
In our previous study on the reporting quality of abstracts according to PRISMA-A, we found that abstracts of Cochrane reviews (CRs) were better reported than non-Cochrane reviews, differed significantly in length (median length: 507 words vs. 249 words), and appeared to be getting longer in recent years. However, the considered sample of CRs was too small to draw robust conclusions. Overall, there is a general lack of studies that address the quality of reporting or trends in the length of the abstracts of CRs.
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5:05 PM - 5:15 PM | Frequency of use and reporting adequacy of Cochrane RoB 2 tool in non-Cochrane systematic reviews published in 2020: meta-research study | Methodological and reporting quality | Background: Risk of bias (RoB) assessment is an integral part of the systematic review methodology. New version of the Cochrane RoB tool for randomized trials (RoB 2) was published in 2019. It has been reported that the Cochrane RoB tool from 2011 was used inadequately in Cochrane and non-Cochrane reviews. There are insufficient data about the use of RoB 2 tool.
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5:05 PM - 5:15 PM | Interpreting the results of observational studies in the context of variation expected due to analytic flexibility | Non-randomised studies and mixed methods | Background:
When investigators analyze data from observational studies, they make numerous potentially justifiable, but still subjective, analytic decisions on which direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of findings can be contingent. This allows investigators to test many alternative analytic specifications and selectively report results for the specification that yields the most statistically significant or interesting results.
Objective:
We present a novel approach to interpret the results of observational studies in the context of the variation expected because of analytic flexibility. We apply this new method to the effect of unprocessed red meat on all-cause mortality.
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5:15 PM - 5:25 PM | Challenges of coordinating large-scale systematic reviews | Editorial processes and supporting review authors | Background: Large-scale systematic reviews are becoming more common owing to the rapid growth in publications on certain topics. They raise unique challenges for managing and coordinating the review process for which there is limited guidance. We will present the challenges we encountered and how we addressed them during two large Cochrane systematic reviews: Quality improvement strategies for diabetes care (n=553 trials) and Audit and feedback (n=290 trials).
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5:15 PM - 5:25 PM | A method for the rapid assessment of high-cost cancer drug indications in a hospital setting | Non-randomised studies and mixed methods | Background:
Hospitals are usually the entry point of new technologies. Facing the challenge posed by the growing costs of cancer drugs, there is a need for healthcare providers to articulate systematic and timely formulary decision-making processes considering not only the efficacy and safety of these treatments, but also their economic impact and efficiency.
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11:05 AM - 11:15 AM | Archie Cochrane's Second E - the creation of Value based Healthcare | Global health, equity and partnerships | Every country on earth is now facing a resource crisis that will not be resolved simply by focusing more on effectiveness; a new paradigm is required - value based healthcare (VBHC). The EU definition of VBHC is now adopted globally, except in the USA which is not committed to universal healthcare. Their the term ‘value’ is the relationship between outcomes and costs for the patients treated which would be classified as efficiency in all other countries, but Archie did not use the term Efficiency in that narrow way. Archie wrote that he was concerned about ‘the optimum use of equipment and personnel ...to cover all these activities I have used the word efficiency’. He was clearly thinking about value, the first person to do so in modern healthcare. The EU definition has four dimensions - personal, allocative, technical and social, and all four are excellently introduced by Archie. Personal value resonates through his description of care in the prisoner of war camp. Allocative value is highlighted in his text on ‘inequalities between diseases... the division of the medical budget amongst all the medical activities’ (p76). Technical value is described in emphasising the need for the ‘optimum use’ of resources for not only problems of treatment but also ‘..screening, diagnosis, place of treatment and length of stay, and, if necessary, rehabilitation’ (p2) and social value in describing the ‘local pride’ that people had for their ‘cottage hospital’ and how this influenced the flow of resources (p34). Effectiveness and Efficiency therefore introduced VBHC fifty years ago! As health services around the world come to understand that they cannot close the gap between demand and resources by ensuring that only effective interventions are offered, there is a huge opportunity for the Collaboration to lead the VBHC paradigm as it led the Evidence Based Healthcare Paradigm. This does not mean doing cost-benefit analyses. It means using the experience and judgement in all the groups to promote stewardship and provide advice on the best use of resources, on value, not just on effectiveness. |
11:05 AM - 11:15 AM | Involvement of children and young people in development of an evidence synthesis framework for what interventions best prevent childhood obesity | Patient or healthcare consumer involvement | Background:
We conducted systematic reviews and meta-analyses of over 250 randomized trials of interventions to prevent obesity in children aged 5 to 18 years. Although we found that interventions targeting diet, activity, and both combined may have small beneficial average effects on BMI, considerable heterogeneity arose from different participant and intervention characteristics. To explore how intervention characteristics, and their synergistic effect, impacted on the intervention effectiveness in preventing obesity, we aimed to reanalyse the results of the studies. To achieve this, we developed a novel analytic framework that addresses key intervention characteristics that are likely to explain differential effects. As children are the direct target of most of the interventions in our review, we decided to ask them what features they think an intervention should have to work best at achieving its goal.
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11:05 AM - 11:25 AM | Development of a health-system guidance implementation tool using a modified Delphi method and a formative evaluation approach | Evidence synthesis and clinical guidelines: tools and methods | Background:
Compared with clinical practice guidelines, the implementation context for health-system guidance (HSG) is more multi-layered and complicated because of the complexity of health systems, the diversity of evidence, and the highly context-sensitive and multifactorial policymaking process. Current guideline implementation frameworks and tools might not be suitable for relatively complex HSG implementation. Therefore, a comprehensive and well-organized theoretical framework to support the HSG implementation was developed.
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11:05 AM - 11:25 AM | Integrating Machine Learning into a Systematic Review Workflow: Testing the Cochrane RCT Classifier in a Research Consultancy Setting | Evidence synthesis innovations and technology | Background: There is strong evidence that machine learning can substantially reduce the burden of manual systematic review (SR) screening. However, outside of Cochrane and some academic groups, the adoption and acceptability of tools is still weak.
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11:05 AM - 11:25 AM | Meta-analysis: what is it all for? | Statistical methods and meta-analysis | Background Meta-analysis has grown increasingly complex in recent years, with a growing range of alternative and sometimes conflicting methods for combining studies, weighting studies, estimating heterogeneity, calculating confidence intervals, and so on. It is increasingly difficult to decide what methods to use, and it is difficult for stakeholders to understand the methods and be confident of their validity. Objectives To challenge the growing complexity of meta-analysis by seeking to return to the first principles for meta-analysis and considering why we perform meta-analyses at all. Concepts It will be argued that there are two key purposes for meta-analysis: 1. To summarise the evidence in identified studies of an intervention. 2. To investigate a deeper “scientific truth” about the intervention. The talk will make the case that the growing complexity in meta-analysis stems from a confusion of the two stated purposes of meta-analysis: by making the flawed assumption that a simple summary of evidence extracted from publications can tell us about the truth underlying the included studies. The talk will demonstrate that a simple “assumption-free” weighted average approach to meta-analysis is always valid if we are aiming only to summarise the available evidence. This also applies when considering heterogeneity. A simple approach has limitations, particularly with few studies or data, but shifting to more complex methods does not solve the problems. Conversely, identifying the “truth” about an intervention requires strong assumptions about the studies that are likely to be flawed. Alternatively, it requires a more complex analysis approach, with better data, such as an individual participant data meta-analysis. Conclusions We need to be clearer on what the purpose of any meta-analysis is and be honest about its limitations. Simple, conventional approaches may be best when we are restricted to summarising evidence in publications. Greater clarity will ensure that patients and stakeholders have a better understanding of what any meta-analysis is actually telling them and what it can’t tell them, without unhelpful methodological complications. This should support greater understanding of the strengths and limitations of meta-analyses. Patient, public, and/or healthcare consumer involvement: No involvement. |
11:15 AM - 11:25 AM | Strengthening the global evidence base on public health and social measures through a WHO research initiative | Global health, equity and partnerships | Background: Public health and social measures (PHSM) refer to nonpharmaceutical interventions implemented by individuals, communities and governments at all levels. During the COVID-19 pandemic, PHSM have been applied globally at an unprecedented scale and time span. PHSM have protected both lives and livelihoods, but they have also had negative health, social and economic consequences for individuals and societies, particularly for those living in vulnerable conditions. Producing robust evidence on the effectiveness and negative impacts of PHSM and understanding factors influencing adherence to measures is crucial to equitable and context-specific decisions and strengthening emergency preparedness and response. However, the complexity of PHSM and ethical, legal and feasibility limitations related to PHSM research in an emergency context, especially randomized controlled trials, have hampered systematic evaluation of PHSM.
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11:15 AM - 11:25 AM | Bringing a patient perspective to understanding interventions that aim to reduce length of stay in hospital: a mixed methods synthesis | Patient or healthcare consumer involvement | Background: Hospital-led, multicomponent organisational strategies that aim to enhance recovery after surgery are associated with improved clinical outcomes. Less is known about aspects of interventions or their delivery which can lead to better patient outcomes. |
11:25 AM - 11:35 AM | Scope, quality and reporting of clinical practice guidelines for newborn and child health in South Africa, Nigeria, and Malawi. | Evidence synthesis and clinical guidelines: tools and methods | Background:
Low- and middle-income countries are disproportionately affected by high rates of under-5-year-old mortality, often caused by preventable conditions. High-quality, evidence-based clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) may play a key role in improving clinical management and quality of care and, thus, in reducing child mortality. However, limited availability or poor accessibility, inadequate reporting and low-quality methodologies of available CPGs may undermine their utility and expected impact in improving quality of care and outcomes.
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11:25 AM - 11:35 AM | Defining Racial Health Equity (RHE): A Landscape Review of Definitions, Terminology and Related Concepts | Global health, equity and partnerships | Background: Vast gaps in healthcare access exist within the United States, particularly across racial and ethnic groups. Promoting health equity has become a priority of the US government and major health organizations; however, a national consensus on shared definitions of these terms does not yet exist. In this study, we will compile, evaluate, and synthesize “racial health equity” (RHE) definitions via a landscape review. Inclusion criteria will encompass systematic reviews, primary literature, narrative reviews, and healthcare guides that include RHE definitions. Defining RHE is a first step to centering and advancing racial health equity.
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11:25 AM - 11:35 AM | Stakeholder involvement to enhance the relevance and accessibility of a Cochrane review of physical rehabilitation after stroke | Patient or healthcare consumer involvement | Background: In 2013-2014, our Cochrane systematic review relating to physical rehabilitation after stroke was produced with involvement of stroke survivors, carers and health professionals (“stakeholders”) who made key decisions about the review scope, structure and presentation of results. In 2022-2023, we conducted a major update of this review, again involving key stakeholders to ensure continued relevance and impact of this review.
Objective: To describe and reflect on the stakeholder involvement in this Cochrane review of physical rehabilitation after stroke.
We will:
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11:25 AM - 11:45 AM | The improved Systematic Review Data Repository Plus (SRDR+): A free, “FHIR-ed up” tool for screening, data extraction, and data sharing | Evidence synthesis innovations and technology | Data Sharing Making data gathered during systematic reviews (SRs) publicly available could reduce unnecessary duplication, support analyses for secondary research questions, and facilitate methodological research. However, only a third of recent SRs have data availability statements, and among those, only 13% have downloadable data from a website/repository. What Is SRDR+? The Systematic Review Data Repository Plus (SRDR+) is a free, online platform for screening and extracting, archiving, and sharing data gathered during SRs. Since inception, it has had 10,083 user accounts from 117 countries. Data have been made publicly available (open access) for 225 SRs containing 19,898 studies on numerous topics. The US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) funds SRDR+. Key Features of SRDR+ SRDR+ is an open-source relational database that allows machine learning–informed screening, flexible data extraction and risk of bias assessment, data adjudication, and data sharing. Newly enhanced SRDR+ features include (1) a data comparison tool to help adjudicate duplicate independently extracted data and (2) a single location for handling citations for abstract screening through full-text screening, data extraction, and data export. SRDR+ can also share data that were not initially extracted into SRDR+ (i.e., data can be imported from other platforms). “FHIR-ed up” Data Sharing Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) is a standard for electronic exchange of health data. The Evidence-Based Medicine on FHIR (EBMonFHIR) initiative is developing standards for sharing SR data, such as citations, study design, population/intervention/exposure/outcome definitions, results, risk of bias, and certainty of evidence. We are enabling SRDR+ to fully comply with FHIR to facilitate data sharing and allow interoperability of SR data with other platforms, including for guideline development (e.g., MAGICapp) and study registries (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov). SRDR+ FHIR-enabled resources will be available via a representational state transfer (RESTful) application programming interface (API), which facilitates backwards compatibility, and will be human readable through the Fast Evidence Interoperability Resources (FEvIR) platform. Plan for the Colloquium Presentation We will provide an overview of SRDR+ and demonstrate progress in making SRDR+ fully FHIR enabled. Patient Involvement Although no patients were involved in this abstract, various SRDR+ projects have involved patient collaborators and contain data for patient-important outcomes. |
11:25 AM - 11:45 AM | Reliably estimating interactions and subgroup effects in aggregate data meta-analysis | Statistical methods and meta-analysis | Background:
A key question for meta-analysis is to reliably assess whether treatment effects vary across different participant subgroups. Traditionally, these interactions have been estimated using approaches known to induce aggregation bias, so we previously recommended a within-trial approach to provide unbiased estimates for binary or ordered-categorical patient-level treatment-covariate interactions. However, patients, clinicians, and policymakers need reliable estimates of treatment effects within specific covariate subgroups, on relative and absolute scales, in order to target treatments appropriately, which estimation of an interaction effect itself does not provide.
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11:35 AM - 11:45 AM | An Evidence Ecosystem Evaluation for the Prevention and Control of Healthcare-Acquired Infections in China | Evidence synthesis and clinical guidelines: tools and methods | Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges for healthcare, especially the increase in health-acquired infections (HAIs), which has put significant pressure on the development of social and economic policy in China. At present, the number of HAIs-related research and policy reports is gradually increasing and gaining attention from different stakeholders. At the same time, the current scope of HAIs research, translation, and implementation in China is unclear and cannot further effectively support evidence-informed decision-making.
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11:35 AM - 11:45 AM | Engaging racially and ethnically diverse stakeholders in evidence syntheses: A review of reviews and guidance documents | Global health, equity and partnerships | Background: The conduct of systematic reviews and other evidence syntheses often involves narrowly focused questions addressing proximal and individual behavioral causes for health outcomes, without considering that distal social determinants of health deeply influence health behaviors and health outcomes. Addressing pervasive racial health inequities, often driven by social determinants and structural racism, requires disrupting research norms by centering marginalized groups. Evidence synthesis guidance does not routinely require incorporating racial health equity across review processes, and a national consensus on how to center racial health equity in evidence syntheses is currently lacking. A key aspect of rethinking methods in the context of racial health equity is revisiting the purpose, nature, and outcomes of engaging stakeholders—including patients, clinicians, community organizations, purchasers, payers, health systems, policy makers, and training institutions—in reviews.
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11:35 AM - 11:45 AM | Development and co-design of a behavioral activation intervention targeting depression among people with dementia for the Swedish context | Patient or healthcare consumer involvement | Background: Approximately 40% of people with dementia experience depression. Whilst psychological interventions are effective for the treatment of depression in dementia, access remains low. A behavioural activation self-help intervention, with support to the person with dementia to use the intervention provided by an informal caregiver, who themselves receives guidance from an occupational therapist (or other trained healthcare professional), may represent a solution.
Objective: To develop a behavioral activation intervention targeting depression among people with dementia for the Swedish context together with key stakeholders.
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11:45 AM - 11:55 AM | The development and testing of the Scientific, Transparent and Applicable Rankings tool (STAR) for clinical practice guidelines | Evidence synthesis and clinical guidelines: tools and methods | Background: Clinical practice guidelines are a critical tool for guiding physicians in clinical practice. Guidelines have been evaluated from different perspectives using various tools. However, the existing evaluation tools have several limitations. First, these tools do not address some key elements of guideline quality, such as guideline applicability, transparency of the processes and methods used for development, and prospective registration. Second, some of the evaluation tools have not been adequately assessed for reliability and validity. Third, most evaluation tools have a limited scope such as methodological quality, reporting quality, or implementation. Thus, a comprehensive evaluation of a guideline is time-consuming because it requires the use of multiple tools encompassing different dimensions. In addition, there may be an overlap of items across different evaluation tools. Fourth, interpreting the results of multiple tools in combination and comparing them across different guidelines is challenging.
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11:45 AM - 11:55 AM | Equity considerations in the conduct of evidence syntheses in partnership with patients and other stakeholders | Global health, equity and partnerships | Background:
There is an increased recognition of the value of coproduction and working in partnership with stakeholders to produce trusted and equity-sensitive evidence syntheses. Stakeholders are individuals or groups who are impacted by health research including patients, caregivers, the public, policymakers, healthcare providers, and program managers.
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11:45 AM - 11:55 AM | Co-designing outcomes for a review on self-harm and suicide prevention interventions: Are we failing our young people? | Patient or healthcare consumer involvement | Background:
Involvement of end users in the production of reviews has mostly been limited to consultative review of researcher-authored protocols with involvement in outcome identification far less common. To address this gap, for a recent Cochrane review on suicide and self-harm prevention interventions in education settings, we collaborated with young people (YP) to codesign review outcomes that were relevant to them.
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11:45 AM - 12:05 PM | Building acceptance for machine learning in study selection within a systematic review institution: Experiences from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health | Evidence synthesis innovations and technology | Background:
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health’s (NIPH) machine learning (ML) implementation team within the Cluster for Reviews and Health Technology Assessments sprung from the need to produce more health technology assessments and systematic reviews, faster, during the COVID-19 pandemic. We introduced and scaled up ML among nonspecialists through using off-the-shelf software, beginning with a 6-month team whose mandate was to explore potential benefits of ML. We then continued with a team to build acceptance and use of the tools through teaching and peer support.
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11:45 AM - 12:05 PM | Likelihood Ratio Meta-Analysis | Statistical methods and meta-analysis | Background: A CI in an updated meta-analysis may not have the expected coverage if the investigator does not account for whether the earlier meta-analysis failed to reject the null hypothesis.
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11:55 AM - 12:05 PM | A real-world example demonstrating the application of Cochrane guidance to ensure transparent synthesis of evidence addressing a broad policy question | Evidence synthesis and clinical guidelines: tools and methods | Background:
Specifying questions and criteria at the level of each synthesis can enhance the transparency of reviews and help ensure that reviews address questions of importance to decision-makers. Version 6 of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions introduced the concept of ‘PICO for each synthesis’ to bring greater focus on the need to plan and report details of the synthesis questions addressed within a systematic review. The results of a systematic review are ultimately determined by these synthesis questions and the decisions authors take in deciding which studies are eligible to answer each question. Without changing the review eligibility criteria, a synthesis can be structured to address different questions (e.g., broader or narrower) simply by grouping interventions, outcomes, or populations differently. Yet this level of specification is uncommon and can be challenging in broad systematic reviews such as those commissioned to address policy questions.
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11:55 AM - 12:05 PM | Implications of centering racial health equity in systematic reviews: results of qualitative interviews with stakeholders | Global health, equity and partnerships | Background: Evidence synthesis guidance does not routinely require incorporating racial health equity across synthesis processes, and a national consensus on how to center racial health equity in evidence syntheses is currently lacking. Diverse stakeholder voices—from patients, clinicians, community organizations, researchers including systematic reviewers, purchasers, payers, research funders, health systems, policymakers, and training institutions—can inform new guidance on the processes, methods, analyses, and dissemination of systematic reviews that center racial health equity.
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11:55 AM - 12:05 PM | Involving people in determining outcomes for a proposed Health Technology Assessment surrounding pelvic organ prolapse | Patient or healthcare consumer involvement | Background: Patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) is an expectation when conducting research, including Health Technology Assessments (HTA), and is increasingly expected as a key component of evidence syntheses. When determining outcome measures for a proposed HTA evaluating nonsurgical interventions for treating pelvic organ prolapse (POP) in women, we wanted to ensure our research was of most relevance to women with the condition. Here, we describe the methods we used to collaborate with women with POP.
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12:05 PM - 12:15 PM | Tools and methods for assessing the transferability of health technology assessment results across jurisdictions: a systematic review | Evidence synthesis and clinical guidelines: tools and methods | Background: There has been a growing interest in using Health Technology Assessment (HTA) as a tool for supporting decision making in health policies. However, the complexity of HTA methods and a lack of local expertise have limited its usage in many countries. The World Health Organization has taken measures in recent years to encourage countries to conduct and use HTA, including through resolutions from the Eastern Mediterranean (EM) Region Regional Committee, which in 2019 called for increased investment in strengthening national institutional capacities for evidence-informed policy making through the use of HTAs. Given the limitations in national technical capacities, there is a focus on adapting HTA results from other settings to the national context of countries. Abstract on sys rev on HTA transferability tool WHO EMRO. docx.pdf |
12:05 PM - 12:15 PM | ChatGPT and large language models for systematic review tasks: What are the opportunities for improvement? | Evidence synthesis innovations and technology | Background: The advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted technologies leave many wondering about the current capabilities, limitations, and opportunities for integration into scientific endeavors. Large language models (LLM) – such as ChatGPT, designed by OpenAI – have recently gained widespread attention with their ability to respond to various prompts in a natural-sounding way. Systematic reviews (SRs) utilize secondary data and often require many months and tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete, making them attractive grounds for developing AI-assistive technologies.
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12:05 PM - 12:15 PM | From Agenda to Action: Collaborative Evidence Networks and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals | Global health, equity and partnerships | Background:
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015 to replace the Millennium Development Goals. As we approach the midway point towards the 2030 target date, it is timely to reflect on the contribution of those in the evidence synthesis community to achieving these important global objectives. The Global Commission on Evidence concluded that both coverage and quality of evidence syntheses was uneven, that many of the reviews were out of date, and many did not include studies from low- or middle-income countries.
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12:05 PM - 12:15 PM | Importance of consensus methods and involving end users to develop evidence-based materials when evidence is scarce: a Red Cross example | Patient or healthcare consumer involvement | Background:
Up to 20% of children and adolescents worldwide experience mental health problems. Because young people find it easier to talk to their peers than to adult family members, teachers, or professionals, training them in how they can support each other is very important.
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12:05 PM - 12:15 PM | Towards More Scientific Meta-Analyses | Statistical methods and meta-analysis | Background:
Meta-analysis typically estimates a quantity that differs from the implicitly intended estimand; typically, standard approaches estimate the average effect of a treatment for a population of imperfect studies, rather than the true scientific effect that would be measured in a population of hypothetical perfect studies. We advocate for an alternative approach, called response-surface meta-analysis, which models the relationship between study design quality and effect size in order to estimate the effect in the hypothetical ideal study.
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12:15 PM - 12:25 PM | The regulatory process for drug approval needs independent meta-analytical evidence: is Cochrane a possible candidate? The case of psychotropic medicines | Evidence synthesis and clinical guidelines: tools and methods | Background: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are responsible for scientific evaluation and approval of medicines. Approval of new drugs is based on the evaluation of individual clinical studies conducted by manufacturers who produce new compounds. Concerns have been raised regarding the rules governing approval of medicines, quality and transparency of evaluations.
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12:15 PM - 12:25 PM | What is the level of expertise of ChatGPT in the domain of systematic reviews and meta-analysis? | Evidence synthesis innovations and technology | Background:
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022. Although it has demonstrated a strong understanding and cognitive ability in numerous fields, its comprehension of topics related to systematic review and meta-analysis is currently not well-understood.
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12:15 PM - 12:25 PM | Analysis of the proportion, role, function, and reporting quality of patient and public involvement (PPI) in systematic reviews and meta-analyses: A cross-sectional study | Patient or healthcare consumer involvement | Background:
Patient and public involvement (PPI) is essential to guarantee that systematic reviews are pertinent and significant to those impacted by a health condition and to those using systematic reviews to guide health policy or practice. Therefore, the BMJ issued a new policy requiring that all submitted manuscripts must include a PPI declaration in their Methods section under a subheading called Patient Involvement in 2014.
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