Evidence Aid Resources: improving access to systematic reviews that are relevant to disasters

Article type
Authors
Aburrow T1, Allen C2, Clarke M2
1Wiley, United Kingdom
2Evidence Aid, United Kingdom
Abstract
Background: Evidence Aid, with partners, assesses published systematic reviews (SRs) to determine their relevance to natural disasters, humanitarian crises or major healthcare emergencies. The SRs will have health outcomes and are featured on www.EvidenceAid.org/Resources with a summary of each review and link to the full text. The main source of SRs for Evidence Aid continues to be Cochrane Reviews, but several non-Cochrane SRs have recently been added. Most of the Cochrane Reviews are also included in the relevant Evidence Aid Special Collection (www.thecochranelibrary.com).
Objectives: To provide a curated and unique collection of SRs to facilitate an informed response by those preparing for and responding to natural disasters and humanitarian crises.
Methods: Evidence Aid works closely with Cochrane and other external partners to identify evidence with health outcomes that decision-makers can assimilate quickly. Members of the Evidence Aid team (largely volunteers), provide a brief summary of the SR, which is featured alongside a link to the full article. Wiley’s editorial team provides support to publish the resources, and relevant information, on a dedicated website: www.EvidenceAid.org. As SRs are added, they are communicated across social media channels. Cochrane and Wiley have provided free one-click access to the full version of all Cochrane Reviews featured in the Evidence Aid resource, to everyone in the world and, recently, Elsevier agreed to provide free click-through access (from the Evidence Aid website) to a review published in one of their journals.
Results: Since November 2011, over 200 titles have been published in the resources collection and these titles are split into 39 categories. The /resources page is the most viewed on the site after the homepage, and on average holds a 12% share of all traffic.
Conclusions: Evidence Aid provides a single source of health-related SRs and specially prepared summaries that might be relevant to those preparing for and responding to natural disasters and humanitarian crises. Evidence Aid continues to identify SRs and works with publishers to secure free, global access to the reviews.