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January
4, 2005
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Vol.
8 No. 1
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Dear Colleagues,
It’s welcome
news that AHRQ is spending $15 million to produce systematic reviews
of interventions
for the top 10 conditions facing
Medicare patients (see our story below). Rarely does a single study revolutionize
the understanding or treatment of a disease. Rather, additional studies
add nuance to a larger body of knowledge on any given topic. Systematic
reviews, on the other hand, provide an empirically sound summary of the
scientific evidence on a specific question. They are the best guide to
effective action, and they identify critical knowledge gaps.
But relatively few systematic reviews have been conducted on health
behavior questions.
Over the past four years, the Evidence-based Behavioral Medicine Committee
of the Society of Behavioral Medicine (http://www.sbm.org/ebbm/) has
worked to apply concepts and methods of evidence-based medicine through
adoption of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (www.consort-statement.org)
and through evaluation of various systematic review systems, including
the Cochrane Collaboration. The EBBM Committee, upon reviewing the various
systems, proposed creating a Behavioral Medicine Field within the Cochrane
Collaboration, in order to accelerate the production of systematic reviews
on health behavior topics.
I urge you to consider
a late New Year’s resolution to participate
in this timely new effort.
Cheers --
Jessie Gruman,
Ph.D.
President and Executive Director
Center for the Advancement of Health
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