evidence and health policy

Question 1

what is evidence based medicine?

Answer 1

the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual
patients

movement within medicine and related professions to base clinical practice on the most rigorous scientific basis, principally informed by the results of randomized controlled trials of effectiveness of interventions

Question 2

what is evidence based health policy?

Answer 2

movement within public policy to give evidence greater weight in shaping policy decisions

the integration of experience, judgement and expertise with the best available external evidence from systematic research

Question 3

what are some missing demographics in evidence based medicine?

Answer 3

pregnant women

children

people who are not usually in evidence based trials - marginalized groups

Question 4

on average, how long does it take for new clinical evidence to change clinical practice?

Answer 4

around 17 years (latest)

Question 5

what portion of canadian research trials have been unreported?

Answer 5

around 1/3

Question 6

what are the steps of evidence-informed health policy?

Answer 6

knowledge creation and distillation: research and run studies and distill knowledge into bite-sized findings (key results)

dissemination and diffusion: releasing information to the world (website, through colleagues, etc)

organizational adoption and implementation: how research actually gets taken up by policy makers

Question 7

what are the types of evaluations?

Answer 7

formative

summative

Question 8

what is formative evaluation?

Answer 8

evaluation designed to assess how a
programme or policy is being implemented with a view to modifying or developing the programme or policy in order to improve its implementation

Question 9

what is summative evaluation?

Answer 9

evaluation designed to produce an
overall verdict on a policy or programme in terms of the balance of costs and benefits

Question 10

what type of study has the least weight in policy making?

Answer 10

animal and laboratory studies with no humans involved

Question 11

what type of studies has the most weight in policy making?

Answer 11

secondary, pre-appraised, filtered

e.g. clinical practice guidelines, meta-analysis systematic review

Question 12

why is it not recommended to screen for prostate cancer?

Answer 12

the process itself could lead to cancer? or some disease i forgot - just don’t do

Question 13

what is publication bias?

Answer 13

the failure to publish the results of a study on the basis of the direction or strength of the study findings

Question 14

what is knowledge translation?

Answer 14

a dynamic and iterative process that includes synthesis, dissemination,
exchange and ethically-sound application of knowledge to improve the health of Canadians, provide more effective health services and products and strengthen the health care system

process takes place within a complex system of interactions between researchers and knowledge users which may vary in intensity, complexity and level of engagement depending on the nature of the research and the findings as well as the needs of the particular knowledge user

Question 15

what role does evidence play in policy making?

Answer 15

it is necessary but not sufficient for policy-making

policy-making is driven by multiple (often competing) accounts of the nature of policy problems, and so research evidence may fail to align with these multiple accounts

Question 16

differentiate between evidence-based and evidence-formed

Answer 16

‘Evidence-based’ suggests that one should simply look to the best available evidence to inform policy decisions. ‘Evidence-informed’ is slightly different.

it acknowledges that decision-making should be ‘informed’ by evidence, not be ‘based’ in evidence (a slight difference that suggests evidence doesn’t simply tell us what to do; rather, it is an input - it ‘informs’ decision-making).