The Cochrane Health Promotion and Public Health (HPPH) Field aims to increase the quantity and quality of Cochrane reviews that address the effectiveness of a wide range of health promotion and public health interventions. Such review topics can be very complex, dealing with upstream and distant causative factors and interventions that are multi-faceted and directed at community or broader levels. Many CRG editorial groups do not include editors with specific health promotion or public health knowledge. The Cochrane HPPH Field's intention is to form a new editorial review group charged with publishing reviews of complex, upstream public health interventions, addressing the needs of potential users of these reviews in policy and practice. The Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) Group have agreed to work with the Cochrane HPPH Field during this period of transition to review group status. This poster will outline the planned staged approach (see below), highlighting the ability of Cochrane entities to engage in mutually beneficial activities that result in increased quantity and expertise of Cochrane editors, a greater pool of content-specific reviewers and an increase in reviews relevant to population health on The Cochrane Library. Issues and outcomes that have arisen in the process thus far will be outlined.
Stage 1: Providing editorial input for reviews relevant to the Field. This stage will allow for the Field to recruit and to build the capacity of editors with health promotion and public health practice, and research knowledge and to orient them to the Cochrane process.
Timeline: approximately for a 6 month period
Stage 2: HPPH becomes a nested, sub-group of the EPOC CRG EPOC would serve as the "publishing house" for titles, protocols and reviews submitted by CHPPH Field. This stage will allow the Field to build editorial and administrative capacity and develop "packages" to market to potential additional funders of a stand-alone CRG. It will also allow the Field to gain credibility to facilitate the transition through the registration process and to illustrate its new role to fellow Cochrane entities.
Timeline: approximately for a 12 month period
Stage 3: HPPH becomes a stand-alone, registered review group This stage would see the entity registered as a Cochrane Review Group, with the role of the group being to produce and publish Cochrane reviews relevant to health promotion and public health on The Cochrane Library. Timeline: ongoing