Boosting global and local partnerships to promote equitable access of COVID-19 guideline recommendations: case study in China

Article type
Authors
Chi Y1, Xia J2, Yao X3, Motilall A4, Lotfi T5, Schünemann H6
1Yealth Network, Beijing Yealth Technology Co., Ltd
2Division of Epidemiology and Public Health, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham Ningbo GRADE Centre
3Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University
4McMaster University, Cochrane Canada
5WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases, Research Methods and Recommendations, MacGRADE, McMaster University
6Cochrane Canada, WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases, Research Methods and Recommendations, MacGRADE, McMaster University
Abstract
Background: The eCOVID19 Recommendations Map and Gateway to Contextualization (RecMap) is a living platform presenting 7280 guideline recommendations. Funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), RecMap involves the collaboration of over 40 partner organisations globally and has launched a knowledge mobilisation (KM) project to benefit wider stakeholders in different countries.

Objectives: To increase the awareness, use, and engagement of the RecMap among guideline developers in China and to identify barriers encountered in the KM activities.

Methods: We used a co-design framework to guide our activities, where the RecMap central team, China team leads, voice of local stakeholders and public, and the context of China COVID-19 policies were considered in planning and iterating the activities. These activities include group discussion, local stakeholder consultation, guideline adolopment (contextualise and adopt recommendations from existing guidelines), plain language recommendation (PLR) translation, webinars, and social media release. We ensured an inclusive participation of age and gender, guideline developers from both clinical and research background, and public involvement.

Results: We collaborated with China GRADE Centres, Cochrane China Network Affiliates, and universities and research institutes in China.”, which means we replace ‘Cochrane Campbell Global Ageing Partnership’ with ‘universities and research institutes in China. We conducted 10 discussions and consultations with experts and held webinars with 1.4 million views. We found that local policies and language are key barriers for introducing and implementing RecMap recommendations in China. The restricted and unpredictable China COVID-19 policies in the past months have hindered our guideline adolopment progress, so it is important to test the feasibility of KM activity with local stakeholders at an early stage to avoid waste of time and resources. To encourage more Chinese to visit the English RecMap website, we prioritised translation of 40 PLRs into Chinese. After identifying mistakes in PLRs translated by volunteers, we established a workflow with professional translator, methodology editor, clinical editor, and citizen editor to co-produce Chinese PLRs to ensure quality and readability.

Conclusions: The rapid global health challenges require us to establish a collaborative platform and streamline the collaboration process for each stakeholder spending less time and fewer resources on negotiating the mechanisms to achieve more efficient, effective, and equitable partnership outcomes.

Public involvement: Citizen editor was involved in PLR development.