Information Box Group
GRADE Decision Thresholds Study
Current
Our team is leading work with international collaborators from the GRADE Working Group to develop methodological guidance for setting decision-thresholds when using GRADE evidence-to-decision (EtD) frameworks to facilitate judgements about the magnitude of health benefits and harms.
Multiple Comparisons Evidence-to-Decision (EtD) Framework and Summary of Findings (SoF) Tables Read More
Current
Guideline decisions that involve more than pairwise comparisons are called multiple comparisons. This project group published an initial exploration of this in the paper: Using GRADE EtD for Multiple Intervention Comparison. Development of GRADE guidance and pilot testing in guidelines is underway.
GRADE Handbook Read More
Current
The aim of this project is to incorporate recent GRADE Working Group developments and harmonize existing guidance into an updated GRADE Handbook.
Values and Preferences
Current
As part of the CIHR-funded project we coordinated the development and validation of Risk of Bias (ROB) and indirectness assessment tools (ROBVALU and DIRECTVALU tools) in individual studies of people’s values utility, and importance of outcome. With the GRADE working group, we are updating the guidance on assessing the certainty of the evidence in people’s values, utility, and importance of outcome.
Plain Language Recommendations
Current
Cochrane Canada was awarded a $1M grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to study and develop robust methodologies around the creation of Plain Language Recommendations (PLRs). The purpose of PLRs is to support individual patient decision-making by communicating information, in plain language, about the benefits and harms of an intervention, the strength of a recommendation, lifestyle management tips, and other explanatory information.
Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse
Current
Researchers have updated a systematic review that will inform the update of public health alcohol consumption guidelines produced by the Canadian Centre for Substance Use. The systematic review is a review of qualitative research about the views and perspectives of the public regarding guidelines and recommendations related to alcohol consumption.
GRADE for Essential Medicines Read More
Current
Access to essential medicines, prioritized by the World Health Organization, are critical to access to universal health care globally. This work stems from initial work Dr. Piggott led on criteria for decision-making in Essential Medicines, and is now co-led by Dr. Lorenzo Moja and Dr. Tamara Kredo and will continue to support essential medicine decision-making and the linkage to health guidelines.
GRADE for Planetary Health
Current
Health care accounts for 5-10% of global carbon emissions, yet most guidelines do not consider the planetary health consequences of their recommendations. This group co-led by Dr. Thomas Piggott, Dr. Grigoris Leontinadis & Dr. Fiona Miller is advocating for consideration of planetary health in health guidelines and the development of methodological guidance to do so.
WHO Quality Assurance Handbook
2022
MacGRADE Centre faculty members and international collaborators developed chapters for the upcoming “WHO Quality Assurance Handbook”, to outline methodological guidance for the development and quality assurance of WHO’s normative and standard-setting products for the WHO.
WHO Masking Review Read More
2020
COVID-19 Review on Physical Distancing, Face Masks, and Eye Protection: With a collaborative effort among global experts, we conducted the first rapid systematic review synthesizing direct evidence on COVID-19 to provide valuable insights for both public and healthcare settings in their efforts to reduce the spread of infection. Our comprehensive analysis, which was commissioned by World Health Organization, served as a critical resource in the battle against COVID transmission.
PANELVIEW Instrument Development Read More
2020
Our team, together with international collaborators, led the development of the PANELVIEW instrument, for guideline-developing groups to assess their guideline processes, methods and outcomes from the perspective of participating and group members.
COVID-END Canada Read More
COVID-END Canada is a CIHR-funded grant that supports decision makers in Canada by finding and summarizing the best available evidence about COVID. It involves more than 40 evidence synthesis teams across Canada that respond to questions from Canadian decision makers with evidence related to clinical, public health, economic, health system, and social health decisions.
Canadian Rheumatology Association
Faculty and staff provided methodological leadership for the Canadian Rheumatology Association Recommendation for the Use of COVID-19 Vaccination for Patients with Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases. The recommendation was developed with a multidisciplinary panel, meeting a need for patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases, their providers, and Canadian policymakers at a time of uncertainty and barriers to COVID-19 vaccination. The recommendation also informed the design of a patient decision aid.