In this seminar from January 2014, Dr Jane Crawley talks about clinical standardisation in PERCH (Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health), a large case-control study of the causes of and risk factors for severe pneumonia.
Dr Nat Segaren - Medical Director of the Caris Foundation, presents on 'The Haiti National Early Infant Diagnosis of HIV Program'
New Public Management (public sector reforms which draw on business ideology) are increasingly seen in African ministries of health. This talk concentrates on the effects of NPM reform on Ethiopian hospitals and how efforts to be 'more business-like' have many unintended consequences for hospitals and patients.
Professor Bongani M Mayosi from the Department of Medicine, Groote Schuur Hospital & University of Cape Town describes the transofmation of the science cohort in South Africa.
In this seminar Professor Kevin Marsh describes how knowledge of immunity to malaria in humans has developed over the past thirty years and what impact this has for future research.
Professor Mike English explains how KEMRI-Wellcome are ''working with government to generate patient level data from a network of Kenyan hospitals as a platform for research'.
Evaluating Clinical Trial Designs for Investigational Treatments of Ebola Virus Disease
by The Editorial TeamThis article published in PLOS Medicine on April 14th, 2015 discusses how best to test Ebola treatment.
Systematic reviews on selected nutrition interventions: descriptive assessment of conduct and methodological challenges
by rehanasalamRigorous and transparent systematic reviews are recognized internationally as a credible source for evidence of effectiveness. However, in the field of nutrition, despite attempts at developing consensus on actions and interventions to reduce undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies, there is lack of coordination among various groups. Each of these methodological choices influences the findings of the reviews, and lack of standardization across these domains increases the complexity for users of systematic reviews in interpreting results. There is a need to develop a consensus on methodologies for nutrition reviews, criteria for assessing the evidence and possibly facilitating development and collation of the evidence in the subject area.
Managing clinical trials, of whatever size and complexity, requires efficient trial management. Trials fail because tried and tested systems handed down through apprenticeships have not been documented, evaluated or published to guide new trialists starting out in this important field.
Barriers and Suggested Facilitators to the Implementation of Best Practice: An Integrative Review.
by H. Al Ghabeesh, S26 studies were reviewed to identify barriers and facilitators for Research Utilisation in nursing practice.
Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement
by Moher et alThe authors in this paper describe the development of a reporting guideline, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses for Protocols 2015 (PRISMA-P 2015). PRISMA-P consists of a 17-item checklist intended to facilitate the preparation and reporting of a robust protocol for the systematic review. Funders and those commissioning reviews might consider mandating the use of the checklist to facilitate the submission of relevant protocol information in funding applications. Similarly, peer reviewers and editors can use the guidance to gauge the completeness and transparency of a systematic review protocol submitted for publication in a journal or other medium.
Hypertension Education Intervention with Ugandan Nurses Working in Hospital Out Patient Clinic: A Pilot Study
by Godfrey Katende, Sara Groves, Kathleen BeckerConclusion: After 3 months of implementing the nurses’ hypertension management educative interventions program, knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding prevention, detection, risk assessment, patient education, and HBP management increased significantly. The pilot study demonstrated the feasibility of implementing a multimodal evidence-based educational intervention in a low resource environment.
Reviews: Rapid! Rapid! Rapid! ...and systematic
by Schünemann et alThe methodology of systematic reviews—although laid out three or more decades ago—is continuously and rapidly updated by scientists specializing in research synthesis. Now, Systematic Reviews is publishing a series of articles including methods and examples of accelerating approaches to conducting literature reviews.
WHO recommends daily co-trimoxazole for children born to HIV-infected mothers from 6 weeks of age until breastfeeding cessation and exclusion of HIV infection. We have previously reported on the effectiveness of continuation of co-trimoxazole prophylaxis up to age 2 years in these children. We assessed the protective efficacy and safety of prolonging co-trimoxazole prophylaxis until age 4 years in HIV-exposed children.
Internet-based systems for epidemiological studies have advantages overtraditional approaches as they can potentially recruit and monitor a wider range of individuals in a relatively inexpensive fashion. We studied the association between communication strategies used for recruitment (offline, online, face-to-face) and follow-up participation in nine Internet-based cohorts: the Influenzanet network of platforms for influenza surveillance which includes seven cohorts in seven different European countries, the Italian birth cohort Ninfea and the New Zealand birth cohortELF. Follow-up participation varied from 43% to 89% depending on the ohort.Although there were heterogeneities among studies, participants who became aware of the study through an online communication campaign compared with those through traditional offline media seemed to have a lower follow-up participation in 8 out of 9 cohorts. There were no clear differences in participation between participants enrolled face-to-face and those enrolled through other offline strategies. An Internet-based campaign for Internet-based epidemiological studies seems to be less effective than an offline one in enrolling volunteers who keepparticipating in follow-up questionnaires. This suggests that even for Internet-based epidemiological studies an offline enrollment campaign would be helpful in order to achieve a higher participation proportion and limit the cohort attrition.
Professor Peter Piot, LSHTM, talks about Ebola and implications for Africa and understanding future epidemics at the Martin School, University of Oxford, 16th October 2014.
Ebola PPE guidelines - urgent need to revise WHO and CDC guidelines. This video shows an excerpt from keynote address 'The fuss about face masks', Professor Raina MacIntyre from the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW Australia.
Observational Studies: Getting Clear about Transparency
by The PLOS Medicine EditorsWhen publishing observational research, what information should journals make available to the medical community before a result can be considered sufficiently reliable to inform patient care or health policy? The PLOS Medicine editors, in recent consultation with our editorial board, endorse measures in four areas to advance transparency in the analysis and reporting of observational studies.
TDR Implementation Research Toolkit
by WHO-TDRThis extensive toolkit was developed by TDR, and explains how to conduct implementation research. This toolkit was designed to help people learn a standard process that would lead to results that could be compared across regions and countries. It is designed to help identify system bottlenecks and the stakeholders to be involved, formulate appropriate research questions, conduct the research and develop a plan for implementing the study results.