Nature: the clear case for funding and using ‘living’ reviews to steer research practice and policy
In the latest edition of Nature, Cochrane Australia’s Julian Elliott and Tari Turner join colleagues from around the globe in calling for a greater focus on living evidence to inform research policy and practice.
A ‘living evidence’ model is one that responds rapidly to emerging research while adhering to trusted standards for evidence synthesis and guideline development.
Reflecting on the benefits delivered by the Australian Covid-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce and the national Covid-19 living guidelines over the last 18 months, the authors highlight the ways living evidence can now be expanded and conclude:
Decisions relevant to global challenges must be informed by the best available evidence. It should no longer be acceptable for evidence to be out of date, biased or selective. Without trustworthy and up-to-date summaries, the world risks making ill-informed decisions and wasting investment.
Living evidence as a practice has been around for barely five years, and there is much to learn. Our experience so far is counter to common initial concerns. Rather than being confused by changing guidelines, clinicians value a resource they know is up to date. Interest from living-evidence practitioners can be sustained and team membership can gradually shift without interrupting updates. The cost of continuously updating guidelines seems about the same as gearing up for big revisions every few years.
The advances made in evidence systems during the COVID-19 pandemic should extend beyond health. We call on researchers in all scientific fields, and their funders, to test the living-evidence model across diverse domains. Trialling the approach with different types of evidence, for a wide range of decision makers, will contribute to the advancement and scale-up of the model. Science does not stand still; neither should its synthesis and translation into action.
Read the full Nature article here
Find out more about living evidence and the work of the Australian Living Evidence Consortium
