You may have already noticed that something is different. We had to switch to another newsletter platform. Sadly this new format doesn’t allow the nice introduction and list of contents thing. However, this won't stop us being informative and silly also, as we hopefully make clear with Tom Gauld's brilliant cartoon above explaining the process of creating these newsletters. And with this silly video. Now we can focus on the actual news.
We have an important announcement on our advancing world domination, some groovy reviews and discussions about them, a meeting with a difference, a course in volcanic environs and wiki-flavoured progress. The usual stuff pretty much. Surprisingly nothing about X-country skiing, which Jani usually jabbers about incessantly this time of the year. Anyway, we hope you enjoy the lot and keep rockin'! Expect the next issue to arrive sometime in April-Mayish.
Introduction of Amsterdam satellite
It is our great pleasure to announce having registered a Cochrane Work satellite at the Coronel Institute in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Now thinking of Sputnik you wonder what kind of satellite do we actually mean. Well, you may think of it as an extension of our editorial base (more like a metastasis actually), led by Dr Jan Hoving as our newly appointed Deputy Coordinating Editor. The recruitment process is ongoing to find a Managing Editor to join him. Once they have set up shop the plan is for Amsterdam to handle all our work participation reviews. Also, save the date of the inaugural symposium on September 6th!
General health checks review updated
Lasse Krogsbøll, Karsten Jørgensen and Peter Gøtzsche have now updated their 2012 review with the latest evidence. It is very interesting but certainly not surprising to see that general health checks are still unlikely to be beneficial. The authors included 17 trials, 15 of which reported outcome data on 251,891 participants. The authors conclude that health checks have little or no effect on the risk of death from any cause, or on the risk of death from cancer, and probably have little or no effect on the risk of death from cardiovascular causes. Read the full review here.
Discussion continues with CSDT review
Our recent review on closed-system drug-transfer devices has been on the receiving end of very potently worded criticism. We checked the review carefully with the authors and rephrased it slightly to say that the evidence is so poor that we cannot draw any conclusions. We will soon organize a public webinar in which the first author, Prof Kurinchi Gurusamy, first presents the review and its findings and then participants are free to ask questions. Be sure to make plenty of popcorn and join what promises to be quite a lively event! Details on when and how to join will be on our website and social media.
Cochrane Members for Change in Krakow
If you follow our exploits on Twitter, you are already no doubt aware of the movement we set up to facilitate major improvements in Cochrane called Cochrane Members for Change. In November 2018, altogether 620 people signed our petition to support the four issues we highlighted on our blog. At the coming Cochrane mid-year meeting in Krakow, April 1-5, we will organise the group’s first open meeting. The idea is to discuss how to move forward on these four issues. We are also trying to organise remote participation. Here too, the details will appear on our website and social media.
We are proud of and thankful to our Editor Thais Morata from NIOSH who leads the institute’s key efforts in populating Wikipedia with the best available OSH information. A major part of this has been to make use of our Cochrane reviews where relevant. As you can see here, 62% of our reviews are linked to from Wikipedia articles. We want to encourage our readers to join in, be bold, and get involved if you spot an article that could use beefing up with Cochrane evidence.
%20reduced.jpg?upscale=true&name=Manifesto%20focus%20group%20(Tom%20Gauld)%20reduced.jpg)
