Evaluating Evidence: Challenges in infection prevention & control
Tari Turner1
1School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University
Evaluating the reliability and relevance of health research evidence is vital to ensuring health practitioners can make evidence-informed decisions to inform policy and practice.
Our experience in the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce developing guidelines for both treatment of COVID-19, and prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection, highlights that in the field of infection prevention and control there are additional, complex challenges to rigorously evaluating the research evidence to underpin decision-making beyond those which apply to evidence for treatments.
These the include limitations on the availability, identification, reporting and methodological quality of the research evidence; as well as limitations in the tools and processes used to evaluate this evidence; and the breadth of skills and expertise needed to accurately appraise and interpret this evidence.
Given the vital importance of decision-making in infection prevention and control, attention is urgently needed to improving the evidence-base for these decisions, and the tools and approaches for evaluating the rigour and utility of this evidence.
Biography:
Associate Professor Tari Turner is Director Evidence and Methods, National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, developing living guidance for COVID-19 infection prevention and treatment, and an Associate Professor (Research) at Cochrane Australia.
Tari leads research developing and evaluating methods for living evidence syntheses, including living systematic reviews and living guidelines; and translating synthesised evidence into improved healthcare practice and policy.
Tari’s passion is supporting evidence-based decision-making to ensure the best possible outcomes, particularly for women and children in low resource settings. She enjoys designing, finding, synthesising and communicating research, and she loves seeing research actually make a difference.
Tari is Co-Editor in Chief of Health Research Policy and Systems, a BMC journal published in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), and a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group to the WHO Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research.