3.4.1 Introduction

Most Cochrane Review Groups are essentially problem-based; they exist to prepare and maintain systematic reviews on specific health care problems. However, there are a number of other dimensions of health care that cannot be usefully conceptualised as ‘health problems’ such as the setting of care (e.g. primary care), the type of patient/consumer (e.g. older persons), or the type of intervention (e.g. vaccines).

Wishing both to draw upon the support existing in these areas of health care and to ensure that their needs are taken into account when producing and promoting access to Cochrane reviews, The Cochrane Collaboration has another type of entity in order to reflect the interests of these dimensions, or ‘fields’, of health care more effectively. This concept also applies to those major divisions of health care embracing areas too large to be covered by a single Review Group (e.g. cancer). Entities such as these are called either Fields or Networks; in this section, they are referred to as ‘Fields’.