WHO announcement press release notes

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North America

Lori Tarbett
Communications Specialist
Canadian Cochrane Centre
00-1-613-562-5800 ext. 2927
ltarbett@uottawa.ca

Lisa Bero
Professor, University of California San Francisco
Director, San Francisco Branch, United States Cochrane Center
00-1-415-476-1067
Lisa.bero@ucsf.edu

Europe

Lucie Jones
Business Communications Officer
The Cochrane Collaboration Secretariat
00-49-(0)-761-203-97644     
ljones@cochrane.org

Asia/Pacific

Jonathan Craig
Co-Chair of The Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group
Via Lucie Jones (above)

About The Cochrane Collaboration

The Cochrane Collaboration is the world's leading independent assessor of medical interventions and medical research. It is a not‐for‐profit organisation of over 28,000 contributors from more than 100 countries and is dedicated to making up‐to‐date, accurate information about the effects of health care treatment readily available worldwide. Cochrane contributors evaluate and synthesize research in all aspects of health care by mining the existing research to find the best possible evidence and identify research gaps. This information is presented in systematic reviews, known as Cochrane Reviews, which are updated periodically to account for new evidence and are published online in The Cochrane Library (www.thecochranelibrary.com). Cochrane Reviews help health providers, practitioners and patients make well‐informed decisions about health care. 

About The World Health Organization

WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

In the 21st century, health is a shared responsibility, involving equitable access to essential care and collective defense against transnational threats.

Principles governing relations between the World Health Organization and nongovernmental organizations [PDF]

The Cochrane Collaboration and WHO projects

• Cochrane Reviews informing WHO guidelines: There are numerous examples of this, including a recent request by the WHO for the Cochrane HIV/AIDS group to contribute to WHO guidance on antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection in adults and adolescents. http://www.cochrane.org/features/featured-review-0. The Cochrane Infectious Diseases group also regularly provides evidence for WHO’s guidelines on infectious and tropical diseases: http://www.who.int/topics/infectious_diseases/en/.            

• REACH: WHO Regional East African Community Health Initiative: The Campbell and Cochrane Equity Methods group received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to work with REACH co-ordinators to assess the effectiveness of knowledge translation strategies to promote uptake of malaria prevention plans, which will be published as a Cochrane Review. http://www.who.int/rpc/evipnet/africa/en/index.html.

• EVIPNet: Evidence-Informed Policy Network for Better Decision-Making: EVIPNet is a WHO initiative that encourages policy makers in low- and middle-income countries to use evidence generated by research. The WHO Collaborating Centre for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Health Equity, and the Campbell and Cochrane Equity Methods Group, work very closely to address issues of equity, knowledge translation and health technology assessment, including an Equity Methods Group evaluation of EVIPNet in the Americas in 2007. www.who.int/rpc/evipnet/en

• Online Training Program: With the formalized partnership and provision of The Pan American Health Organization’s webinar software, the Canadian Cochrane Centre (CCC) is able to provide online author and evidence utilization training in the Americas. http://new.paho.org/