eCAM Advance Access originally published online on August 3, 2005
eCAM 2005 2(3):321-324; doi:10.1093/ecam/neh114
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© The Author (2005). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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Review |
Is Evidence-Based Medicine Relevant to the Developing World?
Systematic reviews have yet to achieve their potential as a resource for practitioners in developing countries
Paul Chinnock is Senior Editor, PLoS, Medicine. Nandi Siegfried is a South African Nuffield Medical Fellow at the University of Oxford (Oxford, United Kingdom). Mike Clarke is Director of the United Kingdom Cochrane Centre (Oxford, United Kingdom). The authors are involved in the work of the Cochrane Collaboration, but the views expressed in this article are their own and are not necessarily those of the Cochrane Collaboration
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Although there is still some resistance to the evidence-based medicine movement, evidence-based health care has now become widely accepted and adopted. Systematic reviews of the effectiveness of health care interventions are the engine room of evidence-based health care; much has been written about how these reviews should be conducted and what they can achieve [1,2]. If the case for the use of systematic reviews is good in developed countries—and we think it is—then the case is even stronger in the developing world. Wherever health care is provided and used, it is essential to know which interventions work, which do not work, and which are likely to be harmful. This is especially important in situations where health problems are severe and the scarcity of resources makes it vital that they are not wasted [3].
But are the systematic reviews that have so far been published
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Reasons Why the Relevance Is Limited |
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Conditions
Interventions
Exclusion of Studies from the Developing World
Quality of Studies from the Developing World
Transferability
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What Can Be Done? |
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Authors
Titles
Context
Background sections
Search for studies
Analysis
Conclusions
Dissemination of the Findings of Reviews
Research
Conclusion
Citation: *To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: pchinnock@plos.org