Join Health Evidence Scientific Director, Maureen Dobbins, for a 60-minute webinar on how to search http://www.healthevidence.org for access to nearly 4,000 quality-rated systematic reviews evaluating the effectiveness of public health interventions.

1. Welcome!
Searching
www.healthevidence.org to
Inform Your Decisions
You will be placed on hold until the webinar begins.
The webinar will begin shortly, please remain on the line.

2. • Use Q&A to post comments /
questions during the webinar
– ‘Send’ questions to All (not
privately to ‘Host’)
• Connection issues
– Recommend using a wired
Internet connection (vs. wireless),
• WebEx 24/7 help line
– 1-866-229-3239
Q&A
Participant Side
Panel in WebExHousekeeping

3. Welcome!
Searching
www.healthevidence.org to
Inform Your Decisions

4. The Health Evidence Team
Maureen Dobbins
Scientific Director
Heather Husson
Manager
Susannah Watson
Project Coordinator
Robyn Traynor
Publications Consultant
Research Assistants
Yaso Gowrinathan
Kelly Graham
Kristin Read
Emily Sully
Alice Wang
Students
Reza Yousefi Nooraie
PhD candidate)
Jennifer Yost
Assistant Professor

5. What is www.healthevidence.org?
Evidence
Decision
Making
inform

6. Community
Health Issues,
Local Context
Research
Evidence
Public Health
Resources
Community and
Political Preferences
and Actions
Public Health
Expertise
A Model for Evidence-Informed
Decision Making
National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools. (revised 2012). A
Model for Evidence-Informed Decision-Making in Public Health (Fact
Sheet). [http://www.nccmt.ca/pubs/FactSheet_EIDM_EN_WEB.pdf]

7. Stages in the process of Evidence-Informed Public Health
National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools. Evidence-Informed
Public Health. [http://www.nccmt.ca/eiph/index-eng.html]

8. 6S Pyramid
National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools. Search Pyramid.
[http://www.nccmt.ca/eiph/search-eng.html]

15. Sample Search #1
• Are community based ‘challenges or
contests’ an effective way to create
behaviour change in community
members?
• Are school based ‘challenges or contests’
an effective way to create behaviour
change in students?

16. • P
• I challenges OR contests
• C
• O behaviour change

17. Considerations
• Searching with term ‘challenge’ produces all abstracts
containing the word ‘challenge’ (e.g., “... The challenge
of this review is ....”)
– Will produce greater, less relevant results
• Identify synonym terms that may produce more precise
results, e.g., competition
• Use ‘Advanced Search’ limits to narrow a large results
set
– Setting = community
– Setting = school

18. ‘competition’ = 14 results
+ setting ‘community ‘= 7 results
+ setting ‘school’ = 6 results

21. Sample Search #2
• Are physical activity interventions effective
for falls prevention in adults 55+
• Are home safety interventions effective for
falls prevention in adults 55+

22. • P Adults 55+
• I
• C
• O Decrease in falls

23. Considerations
• Health Evidence database population category is 60+
– Modify population in question to 60+, or search for BOTH adults
(20-59) AND senior (60+) age categories and screen more results
to capture the 55-60 age range
• To capture variations of ‘falls prevention’, use wildcard
– fall* prevent*
– This will search (fall OR falls OR fallen OR falling) AND (prevent
OR preventing OR prevention) – all variants of each term
• Use ‘Advanced Search’ Limits to narrow large results sets
– Start with a broad search, and continue to apply additional limits to
create a smaller, more relevant results set
– Prioritize strong quality reviews published within the last 5 years

24. ‘fall* prevent*’
Limit ‘population > Senior 60+’ = 76 results
+ topic ‘physical activity’ = 26 results
Limit ‘review quality > strong’
Limit ‘publication date 2010-2014’ = 5 results
+ topic ‘injury prevention/safety’ = 63 results
+ setting ‘home’ = 41 results
Limit ‘review quality > strong’
Limit ‘publication date 2010-2014’ = 10 results

27. Sample Search #3
• What types of interventions are effective in
helping improve preconception health of
women?

28. • P Reproductive-age women
• I
• C
• O Improved preconception health

29. Considerations
• Identify synonym terms to capture all potentially relevant
results, e.g., ‘pre-pregnancy’
• Use quotes for multiple-term phrases, e.g., “pre-
pregnancy”
– Quotes return results that only contain the phrase within “”
• Use wildcard to capture variations of ‘preconception’
– preconception*
– This will search (preconception OR preconceptional)
• Use ‘Advanced Search’ Limits to narrow a large results
set
– Prioritize strong quality reviews published within the last 5 years

30. ‘preconception* OR “pre-pregnancy”’ = 15 results
Limit ‘review quality > strong’
Limit ‘publication date 2010-2014’ = 4 results

32. Beyond the ‘SEARCH’
Other resources on www.healthevidence.org
• Upcoming & archived webinars
• EIDM support
– Practice tools
– Face-to-face knowledge broker consultation

36. Thank you!
Contact us:
info@healthevidence.org