Objectives: The workshop will introduce a new web-based course aimed at consumer advocates who want to sharpen their ability to critically evaluate medical research. This course will be freely available and is a work in progress. Participants will help us refine our project.
The course will help consumer advocates:
1. Understand what evidence-based healthcare is and how people can use it to inform their own healthcare decisions;
2. Find reliable sources of evidence-based information;
3. Critically appraise information found in treatment guidelines, healthcare websites, journal articles, newspaper articles and systematic reviews.

Description: This online course is aimed at consumer advocates who plan to serve on government advisory panals, speak at hearings, and influence research committees and other decision making entities. The idea for this project came from the United States Cochrane Center (USCC) and its coalition of consumer advocates, known as Consumers United for Evidence-Based Healthcare. The first three modules were written by Musa Mayer with extensive input from the USCC staff and members of the coalition. We will present the course step by step and request participants' thoughtful feedback which will be collected into a report by the end of the workshop. The course will eventually contain six modules based on the following topics:

1. Introduction to evidence-based healthcare
2. Formulating an answerable question
3. Developing an effective search strategy and performing the search
4. Critically appraising your search results
5. Making an informed decision

Target audience: Consumer advocates and those interested in improving consumer participation.

Style: Training workshop