Welcome!

Welcome to the July edition of the Cochrane Consumer Network digest, the newsletter for patients, carers and the public, who are interested in health evidence, and may want to help create it.  

In this edition:

• Cochrane and Covid-19 research

• Health evidence from Cochane on cochlear implants or hearing aids for people with severe hearing loss, withdrawing from anti-depressants and more 

• How to be a part of the Cochrane team, and news about TaskExchange

• News from Cochrane around the world including the launch of Cochrane Cameroon

How Cochrane is responding to COVID-19 in 2021

This page (updated daily) highlights content relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and the various related activities that Cochrane is undertaking in response.

In this interview, Deputy Editor in Chief Toby Lasserson and Executive Editor of Cochrane's Central Editorial Service Helen Wakeford, speak about Cochrane’s editorial approach to COVID-19 in 2021. The interview supports their paper, which sets out how Cochrane will respond to COVID-19 going forward and the priorities which inform this response. Read more here. 

Updated Cochrane COVID reviews site 

The Cochrane COVID reviews site has had a major update recently to refresh the details and statuses of all published, in progress, and upcoming Cochrane reviews relating to COVID-19. Find out more here. 

Health evidence from Cochrane and other trusted sources

Severe hearing loss in adults: finding out whether cochlear implants or hearing aids are better

In this blog for adults with hearing loss, Dr Adele Horobin, Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Manager at the Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre discusses COACH, a new clinical trial aiming to find out if hearing aids or a cochlear implant is better for adults with severe hearing loss – (long read). Featured image: ‘Deafness creates walls’ by Emily Chapman. Emily created this piece of textile art using some of the words her mother, Sarah Chapman, had used to describe her experiences of deafness.  Read the blog post here.

Public trust in science remains strong during pandemic, but study suggests some decrease in late 2020

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, scientific research has been widely used to communicate about the disease to the public. New research to understand public views of coronavirus science has found that confidence in science among people in England from March to November 2020 was good overall although declined over this time. Read the paper here.

Podcast: Stopping long-term antidepressants in people with depression or anxiety

Some Cochrane reviews investigate the effects of different ways of stopping, rather than starting treatments. A new review in April 2021 does this for adults who have been taking antidepressants for some time. One of the authors, Mieke van Driel from The  University of Queensland in Australia tells us more in this podcast.

You can listen to the podcast here, or read the review summary here.

How well does botulinum toxin (type A; often called ‘Botox’) treat wrinkles on the face?

Injecting botulinum toxin type A (a Botox-like treatment) reduces wrinkles between the eyebrows, and is relatively safe to use. The effects on wrinkles were seen when measured at four weeks after the injection. Injecting botulinum toxin type A probably increases the risk of eyelid drooping. More studies are needed to assess the longer-term benefits and harms of repeated treatment with botulinum toxin. You can read more about this review here.

Search our Plain Language Summaries of health evidence

Plain Language Summaries (PLSs) help people to understand and interpret research findings and are included in all Cochrane Reviews. PLSs are created using standard content, structure and language to ease understanding and translation.We have over 7000 PLSs that you can find using the search box. Start searching here.

Volunteering with Cochrane

Consumer involvement is vital to Cochrane’s work as it:

(i)    promotes transparency, accountability and trust in the way that research is produced;
(ii)    results in evidence that addresses consumers’ needs, reduces waste in research, improves the translation of research into policy and practice, and ultimately leads to improved benefits for health systems and outcomes for patients;
(iii)    is consistent with current health research approaches and is expected or mandated by our funders, partners and consumers. 

There are many ways to be part of the tea. You can be part of a network for patients and carers within Cochrane. Read more, and join here.

Please click here to see the current range of consumer opportunities on TaskExhange. For more information on how to sign up to TaskExchange, please see these instructions. 

One-click searching for consumer volunteering opportunities on TaskExchange!

You can now search with one click for "Consumer tasks" (volunteering opportunities for patients, carers, and the public) on Cochrane TaskExchange making it easier to find ways to make sure that research is relevant, conducted in a way that meets people's needs, and is more likely to be put into practice. Spot the highlighted button in the picture below. Why not visit the site, set up an account, and start exploring today.

News from Cochrane

Did you miss our recent Governance meetings? Recordings of plenaries available - plus survey!

Did you miss the recent Cochrane Governance meetings on 22nd and 24th June 2021? You can still watch the opening and closing plenaries to find out about its Strategy for change, how Cochrane is responding to funding, Open Access and other  challenges. There's also a survey we'd love you to take to tell us about the meetings.  Read more here. 

Cochrane Cameroon Launches

Cochrane Cameroon was launched on Wednesday 30th June 2021 both online and at the  University of Yaoundé. Amongst a number of presentations, Ndi Euphrasia Ebai-Atuh, a members of Cochrane's Consumer Executive, (second from right below) presented on "Cochrane users’ groups: opportunity for medias and civil society". More information here.