The evidence dissemination process: targeting policy makers Facilitator(s): Arne Ohlsson, Diane Gagnon, Mel Sweetnam, Serge Taillon, Kathie Clark Target: This workshop is designed for people interested in sharing their experiences of identifying the needs of government policy makers for evidence-based decision making and implementing effective and efficient approaches to evidence dissemination. Abstract: This interactive workshop will be designed to achieve the overall goal of identifying effective and efficient means of evidence dissemination to government policy makers. The specific learning objectives include: 1. Identifying the barriers and facilitators to research transfer and uptake among policy makers. 2. Describing and evaluating different methods of assessing the "needs" of policy makers for "evidence". 3. Describing and evaluating different methods of promoting the transfer and uptake of evidence by policy makers. The facilitators will share their experiences with two Canadian projects. One project involved a national consultation on health services and policy issues. The other was a provincial project to introduce health policy makers to Cochrane systematic reviews of health care interventions. Workshop participants will be encouraged to share their experiences and engage in a facilitated discussion of the challenges of promoting and enabling evidence-based decision making among government policy makers. Other Workshops: Session A: Wednesday 10 October - Beginners, training workshops A1: Evidence based medicine on the Internet and quality of medical information A2: A practical introduction to basic statistics for systematic reviewing A3: Criticism Editor's workshop A4: Cochrane Library training A5: Breaking the language barrier A6: Blobbograms with confidence A7: Introduction to measuring diagnostic test accuracy A8: Specialised registers workshop for Cochrane Trials Search Co-ordinators and Review Group Beginners, discussion workshops A9: Assessing the quality of component studies of systematic reviews A10: Collaboration in practice: The South African Cochrane Centre, HIV/AIDS and Infectious Diseases Review Group partnership Advanced, training workshops A11: The Psi-Tri Register: experiences and presentation of common work of several Cochrane Review Groups A12: Regression tools to explore heterogeneity in meta-analysis A13: Handsearching the healthcare literature to identify randomised controlled trials and controlled clinical trials Advanced, discussion workshops A14: The evidence dissemination process: targeting policy makers A15: Why are meta-analyses of continuous outcomes more difficult than meta-analyses of binary outcomes? A16: How should children be handled in systematic reviews of general problems that affects all age groups Session B: Wednesday 10 October - Beginners, open workshops B1: Exploring study heterogeneity: an introduction B2: Dissemination - how to identify and communicate with your audience B3: Evidence-based (laboratory) medicine: how to promote an effective use of EBM tools in clinical laboratory B4: MeerKat: getting it working in practice B5: Handsearching the healthcare literature to identify randomised controlled trials and controlled clinical trials B6: Introduction to research synthesis of diagnostic test evaluations B7: What are Individual Patient Data (IPD) Reviews? Beginners, discussion workshops B8: Cochrane Consumer Online: developing the Consumer Network website B9: Information retrieval methods for Cochrane and other evidence-based information B10: Translation of Cochrane materials into Spanish Advanced, training workshops B11: Specialised registers workshop for Cochrane Trials Search Co-ordinators and Review Group Co-ordinators (advanced) Advanced, discussion workshops B12: Including quality of life/health benefits in economic evaluations incorporated into Cochrane reviews B13: Non-randomised studies in Cochrane reviews B14: Out of the Library and into practice: Developing speciality products to disseminate Cochrane Reviews B15: Technical and structural editing of Cochrane reviews B16: Using alternative software for systematic reviews and meta-analyses B17: Contributorship in Cochrane reviews B18: Meta-analysis of binary data: choosing summary statistics for analysis and presentation Session C: Friday 12 October - Beginners, open workshops C1: Synopses - why and how C2: Investigating and dealing with bias in systematic reviews C3: Using ProCite for creating and maintaining trials registers for submission to CENTRAL C4: Extracting and managing data from published papers Beginners, discussion workshops C5: Successful press releases C6: Incorporating data on adverse effects of interventions in systematic reviews C7: Distance learning techniques and technologies C8: Recruiting and supporting consumers in the Cochrane Collaboration C9: Do traditional studies on diagnostic test accuracy meet our needs? Advanced, training workshops C10: Incorporating crossover trials into systematic reviews Advanced, discussion workshops C11: Qualitative research, process evaluations and systematic reviews C12: Identifying and handling potential research misconduct C13: Evidence for health promotion & public health C14: Variability in systematic reviews of diagnostic tests C15: Cancer treatments: in or out? Economic evaluation of alternatives to conventional hospitalisation C16: CRG editorial teams