Evidence Based Resources & Systematic Review Literature for Public Health Practice
What is Evidence-Based Public Health?
“The process of integrating science-based interventions with community preferences to improve the health of populations.” (Kohatsu ND, Robinson JG, Torner JC. Evidence-based public health: An evolving concept. Am J Prev Med. 2004 Dec;27(5):417-21.)
Evidence-based public health is defined as the development, implementation, and evaluation of effective programs and policies in public health through application of principles of scientific reasoning, including systematic uses of data and information systems, and appropriate use of behavioral science theory and program planning models. (Brownson, Ross C., Elizabeth A. Baker, Terry L. Leet, and Kathleen N. Gillespie, Editors. Evidence-Based Public Health. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.)
Developing, implementing, and evaluating public health programs or public health policies (in public health terms an "intervention") that have 1) data demonstrating their effectiveness and 2) a grounding in a health behavior theory or ecological model of health.
How to Develop a Systematic Review
Review Methods and Resources (Centre for Reviews & Dissemination)
Cochrane Resources (Cochrane Collaboration)
- Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (Cochrane)
This site has the most current version in PDF and MS Word. An earlier version is in HTML for easy browsing of topics.
- Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Health Promotion and Public Health Interventions (PDF)
"This handbook provides a working framework to conduct a systematic review of a health promotion or public health intervention. The purpose of this handbook is to describe the steps of the systematic review process and provide some working examples to practice prior to commencing a review. The handbook, however, is not intended to be used as a single resource for conducting reviews."
- Guidelines for Systematic Reviews and Public Health Interventions (PDF)
"These guidelines complement Sections 3 to 11 of the Cochrane Reviewers’ Handbook (http://www.cochrane.org/resources/handbook/index.htm). The content has been prepared by health promotion and public heal th researchers, decision-makers and practitioners experienced with both the use and conduct of systematic reviews. Whi le these guidelines were original ly developed to support the conduct of systematic reviews, they are also important for the conduct of primary research and for more informal reviews of research evidence. Many of the topics may not be unique to heal th promotion and public health reviews, but they are issues that are important in enabling research to be used in public health policy and practice decision making."
Producing a Systematic Review (Campbell Collaboration)
PRISMA: Transparent Reporting for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
PRISMA stands for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. Use it to ensure you have included the necessary items important for a high-quality systematic review or meta-analysis. The site includes a 27-item checklist and flow diagram. This flow diagram (or flow chart) has been incorporated into the spreadsheet developed by librarians at the UT School of Public Health to use for tracking searches in online databases.
Evidence-Based Practice Meta Search Site
TRIP (Turning Research Into Practice) Database
TRIP searches multiple EBM databases in one fell swoop. Databases listed in the following section that are included in TRIP are designated as such. Do you need to search the others if you search TRIP? The primary database will always have the most current information and some people feel more comfortable searching in the native interface. Having said that, try searching TRIP to see where the majority of the items come from, then go to the site and do one more search just to be sure. TRIP includes:
Additional Sources to Search for Systematic Reviews
UTSPH Students, Staff, and Faculty
Use the "Databases by subject" page to locate online databases for evidence-based research. Under "Select subject for search", choose Evidence-based medicine. Note: Many of these databases are accessible only to UTSPH students, staff, and faculty.
Suggested databases include:
Free Resources to search for systematic reviews
Cochrane Reviews (Cochrane Collaboration; abstracts free to public; included in TRIP)
Evidence Based Practice Centers Evidence Reports (US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; included in TRIP) )
The EPCs review all relevant scientific literature on clinical, behavioral, and organization and financing topics to produce evidence reports and technology assessments. These reports are used for informing and developing coverage decisions, quality measures, educational materials and tools, guidelines, and research agendas.
Bandolier Knowledge Library (included in TRIP)
The impetus behind Bandolier was to find information about evidence of effectiveness (or lack of it), and put the results forward as simple bullet points of those things that worked and those that did not: a bandolier with bullets. Information comes from systematic reviews, meta-analyses, randomised trials, and from high quality observational studies.
EPPI-Centre (Social Science Research Centre, University of London)
- Evidence Library
- Search for Reviews
In this section, you can search for a systematic review by broad topic areas, population focus, health promotion keywords, and more.
- Knowledge Library
enable access to the key messages about a specific subject area, e.g. obesity. These key messages are drawn from the total knowledge base within the EPPI-Centre and may come from multiple reviews.
- Bibliomap-- Health Promotion Research
BiblioMap contains the citations to the articles that were used to develop the systematic reviews found in the Evidence Library. It is updated only when a systematic review has been completed.
- Database of Promoting Health Effectiveness Reviews (DoPHER)
This is a database of health promotion reviews that have been published in a variety of sources-- Cochrane, the journal literature, government reports, etc.
Campbell Collaboration Register of Interventions and Policy Evaluations
"The Campbell Collaboration was founded on the principle that systematic reviews on the effects of interventions will inform and help improve policy and services. C2 offers excellent editorial and methodological support to review authors throughout the process of producing a systematic review. " Reviews are in the areas of criminal justice, education, and social welfare.
The Community Guide
PubMed link for the public (National Library of Medicine)
- PubMed is free to the public. Searches will retrieve an abstract and links to the online FT when available.
- Use the PubMed search filter that has been developed to help you find SRs.
Assessment of Studies
Equator Network
This site is designed to provide you the standards that should be used when publishing studies. You can use the resources to guide you as you evaluate study publications, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses, or when writing up your own findings.
- Library for health research reporting
Includes PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses), STROBE (STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology), CONSORT (CONsolidated Standards of Reporting Trials), STARD (STAndards for the Reporting of Diagnostic accuracy studies)as well as many, MANY others.
Downs & Black checklist: The feasability of creating a checklist for the assessment of the methodological quality of both randomised and non-randomised studies of health care interventions. J Epidemol Community Health 1998; 52:377-84.
Criteria for Distinguishing Effectiveness from Efficacy Trials in Systematic Reviews (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
"To propose and test a simple instrument based on seven criteria of study design to distinguish effectiveness (pragmatic) from efficacy (explanatory) trials while conducting systematic reviews."
The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) for assessing the quality of nonrandomised studies in meta-analyses
"Nonrandomised studies, including case-control and cohort studies, can be challenging to implement and conduct. Assessment of the quality of such studies is essential for a proper understanding of nonrandomised studies. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) is an ongoing collaboration between the Universities of Newcastle, Australia and Ottawa, Canada." A copy of the scale in both Word and PDF may be found on the page. Unless otherwise noted by the authors, this scale has not been empirically tested.
Appraisal Tools (Public Health Resource Unit, National Health Service)
Assessments of Effects
Technology Assessments (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
"AHRQ's technology assessment program uses state-of-the-art methodologies for assessing the clinical utility of medical interventions. Technology assessments are based on a systematic review of the literature, along with appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods of synthesizing data from multiple studies."
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Health Technology Assessment Database "The
HTA database brings together details of completed and ongoing health technology assessments from around the world. The abstracts in the database are descriptive rather than analytical and do not form critical appraisals of the reports."
Natural Standard (Natural Standard)
"Natural Standard is an international research collaboration that aggregates and synthesizes data on complementary and alternative therapies."
More about this site...
Critical Appraisal Tools to evaluate systematic reviews, cohort studies, trials, case control studies, etc. (Public Health Resource Unit, NHS, UK)
NHS Economic Evaluation Database (Centre for Reviews & Dissemination)
Note: This is included in the Cochrane Library. "The database aims to assist decision-makers by systematically identifying and describing economic evaluations, appraising their quality and highlighting their relative strengths and weaknesses."
Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health (Tufts Medical Center, Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies)
The CEA Registry is a comprehensive database of over 1,700 cost-utility analyses on a wide variety of diseases and treatments.
Evidence-Based Guidelines
Clinical Practice Guidelines (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence Clinical Guidelines
Best Practices
The Community Guide
Model Practices Database (National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO))
Promising Practices Network (RAND Corporation)
"PPN’s target audience includes policymakers, service providers, and other decision makers at all levels who care about improving outcomes for children and families." More about this site..
Evidence Base (National Institute for Health and Clinical Evidence (NICE))
..."these papers help support evidence-based decision making by public health practitioners". More about this site...
Health-Evidence.ca
"The ultimate goal of the research team is to facilitate the adoption and implementation of effective policies/programs/interventions at the local and regional public health decision-making levels across Canada"
TRIP (Turning Research Into Practice) Database
TRIP searches multiple EBM databases in one fell swoop.
Theory at a Glance: A Guide for Health Promotion Practice
"This monograph describes influential theories of health-related behaviors, the processes of shaping behaviors, and the effects of community and environmental factors on behavior. It makes health behavior theory accessible and provides tools to solve problems and assess the effectiveness of health promotion programs. NIH Publication No. 05-3896"
To develop your own SR, you may find that you'll need to locate clinical trials in progress and contact the researchers. The SPH Library has a list of 7 or so places to look for trials. Go to:
These sites provide additional links to EBPH resources. Many of the items listed on this page can be found on these pages as well.
Free Online Research Journal Collections
There are many sites that provide access to free research journals. As you review the sites, be sure to pay close to attention as to what is free. Some publishers restrict access by date-- the most current issue is subscription-based only, for example. Some offer certain sections for free but other sections require a subscription. There may be overlap between these collections and some of the journals that are free may require you to register before viewing.
