February 2023 (Next April 2023)

In this issue

1) The 2023 Cochrane Colloquium call for abstracts and workshops is open.

2) New Future of Evidence Synthesis`s post about our first open access journal Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods.

3) Upcoming events and opportunities to get involved include online webinars and Methods Support Web clinics

4) Meet Camilla Hansen Nejstgaard of the Bias Methods Group

5) New resources include and much more!

Your top highlights

The 2023 Cochrane Colloquium call for abstracts and workshops is open.

The theme of the Colloquium is 'Forward together for trusted evidence', which explores the challenges for the future around the trustworthiness of healthcare information whilst also celebrating 30 years of producing trusted evidence. Abstracts and workshop submissions are open until Wednesday, March 1, 2023. Sign up here to receive Colloquium updates.

Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods: Adding to our collaboration & relevance

Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods recently opened for submissions. By developing collaboration opportunities with our new open access journal, Cochrane will be better able to achieve its mission of a world of better health for all where decisions are informed by high-quality evidence. In addition, embedding relevance will facilitate our impact globally, which the journal will showcase with a variety of journal and article metrics. 

Events and opportunities

Upcoming

9 February: Cochrane Methods Support Unit Web clinic: Risk of Bias 2: Good practice and common errors. Open to Cochrane authors, editors and staff; registration required.

9, 10 and 21 February: Online course GRADE approach to summarise evidence for policy and practice, hosted by the Melbourne GRADE Center. Open to all; course fee applies.

14 February: Workshop on Methodology for Writing a Systematic Review (Hybrid mode), performed by the Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi. Open to all; registration required.

15 February: 13^th KASH Conference: Promoting Systematic Use of Research Evidence to Inform Health Policy and Practice: Lessons from Knowledge Translation during COVID-19 Pandemic, in Nairobi, Kenya. Open to all; course fee applies.

16 February: Webinar Data sources and searching for Adverse Effects (with Adverse Effects Methods Group). Hosted by Evidence Synthesis Ireland. Open to all; registration required.

2 March: Webinar Are We There Yet? If, Why, When and How to Update a Qualitative Evidence Synthesis (with Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group). Hosted by Evidence Synthesis Ireland. Open to all; registration required.

7 to 14 March: Online course Introduction to Systematic Reviews in Health Course, hosted by the University of Southampton. Open to all; course fee applies.

9 March: Cochrane Methods Support Unit Web clinic: How can the framework for prospective, adaptive meta-analysis (FAME) be used to improve the quality of Cochrane reviews? Open to Cochrane authors, editors and staff; registration required.

9 March: Future of evidence synthesis Webinar: Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods - A new Cochrane journal. Open to all; registration required.

9 March: Course GRADE for Interventions, hosted by the Dutch GRADE Network (Utrecht, The Netherlands). Open to guideline developers and systematic reviewers, course fee applies.

Can you help with methods-related tasks? Browse Engage (formerly TaskExchange) for opportunities (tip! Filter by your specific skills). For more information on signing up and using the platform, see the instructions.

New resources

1) Recordings from the Methods Support Unit Web Clinics: How to approach writing a Background section and Assessing imprecision and inconsistency in GRADE, available on the Cochrane Training website.

2) Recordings from the Cochrane Learning Live: Performing meta-analyses in the case of very few studies available on the Cochrane Training Website.

3) Members of GRADEing Methods Group propose to adopt GRADE to tackle the impact of climate change on health in Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.

4) Members of Prospective Meta-Analysis Methods Group participate in characterising the peer review process in a general medical research journal before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in JAMA Network Open.

5) Members of Bias Methods Group and the Central Executive Team guide how to use the Risk of Bias 2 tool in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.

6) Members of Bias Methods Group summarise comments on the core reporting guidelines for protocols of randomised trials and completed trials in Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.

7) Members of Prognosis Methods Group present sample size criteria for developing multivariable prediction models using multinomial logistic regression in Statistical Methods in Medical Research.

8) Members of Prognosis Methods Group participate in a new initiative to develop a new reporting tool for systematic reviews on Artificial Intelligence interventions announced in Nature Medicine.

9) Members of Prospective Meta-Analysis Methods Group discuss real trends in evaluating medical products in American Journal of Epidemiology.

10) Members of Statistics Methods Group participate in a Delphi process regarding developing the RoB NMA tool reported in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.

11) Members of IPD Meta-Analysis Methods Group participate in developing a "within–trial" framework to estimate interactions and subgroup-specific treatment effects in meta-analysis without aggregation bias, reported in Research Synthesis Methods.

12) Members of Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group participate in developing a new framework for synthesising intervention evidence from multiple sources into a single certainty of evidence rating in Research Synthesis Methods.

Meet Camilla Hansen Nejstgaard of the Bias Methods Group

1) What's the aim of the Methods Group and who else is involved? 

The Bias Methods Group strives to raise awareness of different sources of bias in research studies, which may affect the credibility of systematic reviews. We work on developing and implementing various tools used in Cochrane Reviews and other systematic reviews. The Group is led by Convenors Isabelle Boutron (France), Julian Higgins (UK), Asbjørn Hróbjartsson (Denmark), and Matthew Page (Australia), along with myself, the group coordinator.

2) What do you do outside of the Methods Group? 

I am a postdoc at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Odense and Cochrane Denmark. My research mainly concerns reporting quality, bias, and conflicts of interest in different types of clinical research.