October 2022 (next issue December 2022)

In this issue

1) The Bias Methods Group Annual Meeting on 7-8 November.

2) QUADAS-C is endorsed by Cochrane as an optional risk of bias tool for Cochrane Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy addressing comparative questions.

3) Methods sessions at the What works Global Summit on 18-20 October.

4) Upcoming events and opportunities to get involved in, including online webinars, Cochrane web clinics and in-person training.

5) New resources include tools, methods research and recordings.

6) And much more!

Your top three highlights

2022 Bias Methods Group Annual Meeting on 7-8 November 

Add this year's annual Bias Methods Group meeting(s) to your diaries. The Bias Methods Group have planned two virtual meetings with full details here.

QUADAS-C is endorsed by Cochrane as an optional risk of bias tool for Cochrane Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy addressing comparative questions

Cochrane's Editor-in-Chief endorsed the QUADAS-C risk of bias tool as optional for prospective authors of Cochrane Diagnostic Test Accuracy (DTA) Reviews addressing comparative questions. Full details here.

2022 What works Global Summit on 18-20 October

The Campbell Collaboration and Campbell UK & Ireland will co-host this online event, focusing on the latest research on social science topics. Methods topics include equity, qualitative evidence synthesis, information retrieval and much more. Full details here.

Events and opportunities

Upcoming

13 October: Future of evidence synthesis webinar: Editorial and production update. Open to all, registration required.

13 October: Cochrane Methods Support Unit Web Clinic: Interpretation of subgroup analyses. Open to Cochrane authors, editors and staff, registration required.

17-20 October: Meeting of the Iberoamerican Cochrane Network: Impulse and application of critical thinking in Medicine, in Barcelona, Spain. Open to all, fee applies to workshops only.

20 October: World Evidence-Based Healthcare Day. Open to all, registration required.

27 October: Equity, diversity and inclusion in Cochrane and Campbell systematic reviews webinar with the Campbell and Cochrane Equity Methods Group. Open to all, registration required.

10 November: Risk of Bias 2 in systematic reviews Workshop in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Open to Cochrane authors, course fee applies.

10 November: Cochrane Methods Support Unit web clinic: Development of materials to facilitate implementation of methods for presentation and statistical synthesis when data are not amenable to meta-analysis. Open to Cochrane authors, editors and staff, registration required.

15 November: Cochrane Learning Live webinar: Answering complex question in network meta-analysis. Open to all, registration required.

22-23 November: Cochrane South Africa National symposium online. Open to all, registration required.

30 November: Cochrane Lecture: Cochrane 2.0: Closing the Global Health Equity Gap. Open to all, registration required.

7-9 December: Systematic reviews and meta-analysis of diagnostic test accuracy studies online course with Cochrane Netherlands. Open to all, course fee applies.

8 December: Cochrane Methods Support Unit Web Clinic: Writing background sections. Open to Cochrane authors, editors and staff, registration required.

More events and opportunities here.

Can you help with methods-related tasks? Browse 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) Members of Cochrane Haematology and Cochrane Infectious Diseases Review Groups published a new research integrity assessment tool for randomized controlled trials in evidence synthesis in Research Synthesis Methods.

2) The Cochrane Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Review Group investigates the veracity of a sample of divergent published trial data in spinal pain in their new paper published in Pain.

3) Members of Screening and Diagnostic Tests Methods Group have published a comment in The Lancet Regional Health about using rapid antigen strategies for COVID-19 detection. 

4) Leads of Prognosis Methods Group have published a paper in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine that describes the potential advantages of individual participant data for network meta-analysis projects, especially related to the heterogeneity and inconsistency in the network. 

5) Leads of Rapid Reviews Methods Group have published the results of the Priority III study in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. The paper focuses on identifying and prioritising the top 10 unanswered questions for future research on how we plan, do and share the results of rapid reviews in healthcare.

6) Leads of Adverse Effects Methods Group have published a new paper in Health Information and Libraries on developed and validated search filters to retrieve evidence on adverse drug effects from Ovid Medline and Ovid Embase.

7) Cochrane Methods Support Unit web clinic on what makes a good discussion section. Recording now available.

8) Updated GRADE guidance for imprecision rating using a minimally contextualised approach with the GRADEing Methods Group. Recording now available.

9) Searching clinical trial registers, a guide for systematic reviews, with the Prospective Meta-Analysis Methods Group. Recording now available.

Other news

1) We welcome Chantelle Garrity (Rapid Reviews Methods Group) and Areti Angeliki Veroniki (Statistics Methods Group) to the Cochrane Methods Executive.

2) We welcome Rachel Richardson (Methods Support Unit Manager), Sofia Tsokani (Statistics Editor), Afroditi Kanellopoulou (Statistics Editor), Ingrid Arevalo-Rodriguez (Methods Implementation Editor) and Ella Flemyng (Editorial Product Lead) to their new positions in the Evidence Production & Methods Directorate.

3) National Eye Institute Awards $5 Million to Tianjing Li (Comparing Multiple Interventions Methods Group) for CU Anschutz-based Cochrane Eyes and Vision US Project.

4) Cochrane Nigeria, in collaboration with the Cochrane Response, is assisting WHO in the update of the Infection prevention and control in the context of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) living guideline (last version published in March 2022). For more information, please get in touch with Martin Meremikwu or the Cochrane Response team.

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Learning events - find information about upcoming training (in-person and online).