Fair tests of health-care policies and treatments: A request for help from readers
Author(s)/Editor(s): Oxman AD, Chalmers Î
Publisher/Organizer: Bulletin of the World Health Organization
Publication date: June 2009;87
Language: English
Overview
"Health-care policies impact on peoples’ lives. For example, a policy decision not to have publicly funded health insurance with universal coverage limits peoples’ choices to what they can afford. Those who make policy decisions are ethically and politically bound to make decisions that are in the interests of the people whom they serve. Evaluating the effects of policies is important because this is the only way of knowing the extent to which policies are doing more good than harm.”
There are three ways in which you can help us:
- Provide examples of randomized evaluations of health-care policies
- Provide examples of compelling evidence from non-randomized evaluations of health-care policies
- Provide early examples of treatment evaluations
If you are aware of examples relevant to any of the three categories described above, please send us copies of them, identifying the key passages and providing a translation if the text is not in English, by post, facsimile or e-mail to: Bulletin of the World Health Organization Project, c/o James Lind Initiative, Summertown Pavilion, Middle Way, Oxford OX2 7LG, England. Fax: +44 1865 516 311; e-mail: feedback@jameslindlibrary.org. Your help will be acknowledged explicitly unless you instruct us otherwise.”