Article type
Year
Abstract
Background:
Traditionally, occupational health programs have been informed by research evidence, professional experience, and stakeholder preferences. Time and lack of skills are challenges to accessing recent evidence and updating programs designed to promote health and prevent disease. The high rates of work-related health conditions and injury indicate that the effectiveness of preventive programs has been limited. This suggests that that rigorous evaluation is not being conducted to verify impact. Internationally, support available to build capacity for evidence-informed decision-making among the public health workforce varies widely. The need to develop capacity in intervention effectiveness research and systematic reviews in the area of occupational health has been identified.
Objectives:
To describe a strategy to promote evidence-informed decision-making to improve occupational health.
Results:
The participation of Chinese authors in Cochrane has been focused in the areas of clinical interventions and medical devices. In recent years, the Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention identified the need to adopt intervention effectiveness research to evaluate and expand activities directed to the prevention of leading work-related health conditions. One of these conditions is work-related hearing loss. Two approaches have been taken towards building capacity in evidence-informed decision-making to improve occupational health interventions:
1. With the availability of new technologies to measure the attenuation provided by hearing protection devices, field studies were conducted to examine their effectiveness in offering needed protection against noise effects (Liu et al., Ear Hear. 2019; Gong et al., Int J Audiol. 2019).
2. The work described above facilitated a research partnership with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US. That consultation led to the opportunity of building capacity for participation in Cochrane reviews in the area of occupational health. The effort included training of the staff, the translation of reviews into Chinese, and co-authorship of a planned review.
Conclusions:
The coordination of these efforts has the potential to:
- advance the knowledge and stimulate the practice of evaluating the effectiveness of interventions;
- expand the dissemination of the results to inform decision-making; and
- help identify approaches for international efforts to improve quality of research and the uptake of evidence into practice.
Ultimately we expect it will contribute to Cochrane’s Strategy to 2020 efforts towards building a diverse, inclusive and transparent international organization.
Disclaimer: The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Traditionally, occupational health programs have been informed by research evidence, professional experience, and stakeholder preferences. Time and lack of skills are challenges to accessing recent evidence and updating programs designed to promote health and prevent disease. The high rates of work-related health conditions and injury indicate that the effectiveness of preventive programs has been limited. This suggests that that rigorous evaluation is not being conducted to verify impact. Internationally, support available to build capacity for evidence-informed decision-making among the public health workforce varies widely. The need to develop capacity in intervention effectiveness research and systematic reviews in the area of occupational health has been identified.
Objectives:
To describe a strategy to promote evidence-informed decision-making to improve occupational health.
Results:
The participation of Chinese authors in Cochrane has been focused in the areas of clinical interventions and medical devices. In recent years, the Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention identified the need to adopt intervention effectiveness research to evaluate and expand activities directed to the prevention of leading work-related health conditions. One of these conditions is work-related hearing loss. Two approaches have been taken towards building capacity in evidence-informed decision-making to improve occupational health interventions:
1. With the availability of new technologies to measure the attenuation provided by hearing protection devices, field studies were conducted to examine their effectiveness in offering needed protection against noise effects (Liu et al., Ear Hear. 2019; Gong et al., Int J Audiol. 2019).
2. The work described above facilitated a research partnership with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US. That consultation led to the opportunity of building capacity for participation in Cochrane reviews in the area of occupational health. The effort included training of the staff, the translation of reviews into Chinese, and co-authorship of a planned review.
Conclusions:
The coordination of these efforts has the potential to:
- advance the knowledge and stimulate the practice of evaluating the effectiveness of interventions;
- expand the dissemination of the results to inform decision-making; and
- help identify approaches for international efforts to improve quality of research and the uptake of evidence into practice.
Ultimately we expect it will contribute to Cochrane’s Strategy to 2020 efforts towards building a diverse, inclusive and transparent international organization.
Disclaimer: The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.