Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: there is a moral imperative to disseminate Cochrane Systematic Review findings to end users so that they may base health decisions on reliable, high-quality evidence. However, end users are diverse in regard to geography, stakeholder role, culture, and income level. Dissemination methods must take this diversity into account for successful uptake.
Objectives: to present the methods and lessons learned by organizations disseminating health evidence to end users. These methods can provide insight into context-specific best practices.
Methods: we assessed ongoing efforts to disseminate Cochrane evidence to end users in Pakistan, a lower-middle-income country (LMIC), and the USA, a high-income country, by the Pakistan Children’s Heart Foundation (PCHF) and Cochrane Eyes and Vision US Satellite (CEV@US), respectively. PCHF is a caregiver-led advocacy non-profit organization that seeks to improve congenital heart disease (CHD) outcomes. We summarized each organization’s dissemination efforts and evaluated areas of future improvement.
Results: the PCHF has created a nationwide CHD paediatric patient registry to help families co-ordinate care and learn relevant health evidence, partnered with existing hospitals to hire and train staff, and identified backlogged hospitals where cardiac specialists could provide and promote evidence-based care. Despite having fewer than 35 paediatric cardiologists and cardiac surgeons in Pakistan, PCHF has supported over 1423 surgeries and interventions for paediatric CHD patients since 2012. In the USA, CEV@US has disseminated review findings (as of November 2018; 2019 data will be reported at the Colloquium) via: 72/79 (91%) CEV@US reviews cited in Wikipedia, three animated video summaries, 920 quarterly newsletter recipients, 36/79 (46%) slide sets, 13/79 (16%) reviews with trial-level data on Systematic Review Data Repository (srdr.ahrq.gov), 42 peer-reviewed methodological articles, and three co-publications.
Conclusions: organizations disseminating Cochrane health evidence in LMICs must also facilitate the opportunity for health evidence to be used at the point of care. To address this, PCHF has used their multi-stakeholder partnerships to strengthen medical infrastructure and to overcome the financial and cultural barriers preventing patients from obtaining care. PCHF has thus developed a replicable, innovative model for disseminating evidence that other health advocacy organizations may adapt in LMICs. For organizations disseminating health evidence in upper-middle and high-income countries, utilizing popular online channels is a low-effort option but must be regularly advertised to promote awareness and use. Key shared lessons were: 1) avoid duplication of effort by leveraging existing partnerships or resources; and 2) collaborate with and involve end users in dissemination efforts to achieve wide reach.
Objectives: to present the methods and lessons learned by organizations disseminating health evidence to end users. These methods can provide insight into context-specific best practices.
Methods: we assessed ongoing efforts to disseminate Cochrane evidence to end users in Pakistan, a lower-middle-income country (LMIC), and the USA, a high-income country, by the Pakistan Children’s Heart Foundation (PCHF) and Cochrane Eyes and Vision US Satellite (CEV@US), respectively. PCHF is a caregiver-led advocacy non-profit organization that seeks to improve congenital heart disease (CHD) outcomes. We summarized each organization’s dissemination efforts and evaluated areas of future improvement.
Results: the PCHF has created a nationwide CHD paediatric patient registry to help families co-ordinate care and learn relevant health evidence, partnered with existing hospitals to hire and train staff, and identified backlogged hospitals where cardiac specialists could provide and promote evidence-based care. Despite having fewer than 35 paediatric cardiologists and cardiac surgeons in Pakistan, PCHF has supported over 1423 surgeries and interventions for paediatric CHD patients since 2012. In the USA, CEV@US has disseminated review findings (as of November 2018; 2019 data will be reported at the Colloquium) via: 72/79 (91%) CEV@US reviews cited in Wikipedia, three animated video summaries, 920 quarterly newsletter recipients, 36/79 (46%) slide sets, 13/79 (16%) reviews with trial-level data on Systematic Review Data Repository (srdr.ahrq.gov), 42 peer-reviewed methodological articles, and three co-publications.
Conclusions: organizations disseminating Cochrane health evidence in LMICs must also facilitate the opportunity for health evidence to be used at the point of care. To address this, PCHF has used their multi-stakeholder partnerships to strengthen medical infrastructure and to overcome the financial and cultural barriers preventing patients from obtaining care. PCHF has thus developed a replicable, innovative model for disseminating evidence that other health advocacy organizations may adapt in LMICs. For organizations disseminating health evidence in upper-middle and high-income countries, utilizing popular online channels is a low-effort option but must be regularly advertised to promote awareness and use. Key shared lessons were: 1) avoid duplication of effort by leveraging existing partnerships or resources; and 2) collaborate with and involve end users in dissemination efforts to achieve wide reach.