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0:00
Hello, and thank you
for joining me today
to learn about the
Cochrane Library.
My name is Riaz Qureshi,
and I'm an assistant
professor in
the Department of
Ophthalmology and Epidemiology
at the University of Colorado
Anschutz Medical Campus.
I'm an epidemiologist
specializing in methods,
and I completed my doctorate
at Johns Hopkins in
the epidemiology
department specializing
in clinical trials and
evidence synthesis.
Today, I'm going to give a
tour of the Cochrane Library
and how to use it and
the resources within.
0:29
I've organized this talk
into three sections.
The first will briefly
outline some of
the history and organization
of the Cochrane collaboration.
Then we'll go over the two
major products of Cochrane.
Those being the database of
systematic reviews and
the trials register.
Then, I'll show you how
to navigate the resources
on the website for
additional information for
anyone wanting to maybe
get involved with Cochrane
and get into the world
of systematic reviewing.
This talk will be
split into two parts,
covering the databases and
taking a break before
diving into searching.
0:59
Cochrane is an
international network
with headquarters in the UK.
It is a registered not-for-profit
organization and a member
of the UK National Council
for Voluntary Organisations.
This is the main landing
page for the library
with links to the review
database, the trial register,
the clinical answers section,
which I'll also talk about
briefly towards the end,
and highlighted reviews and
special collaborations.
1:24
The Cochrane Collaboration
was founded in 1993,
following a meeting of an
initial group of 77 people from
nine countries at the first
Cochrane Colloquium
in Oxford, UK.
The UK Cochrane Center
had been opened
in the year before in 1992,
arising from a groundbreaking
program of work
by Ian Chalmers
and colleagues in
the area of pregnancy
and childbirth.
The name for the organization
comes from Archie Cochrane.
He was a British epidemiologist,
best known for his book
Effectiveness and Efficiency:
Random Reflections
on Health Services.
This was published in 1971.
In the book, he
suggested that because
resources would
always be limited,
they should be used
to equitably provide
forms of healthcare
which had been shown
in properly designed
evaluations to be effective.
In particular, he stressed
the importance of
using evidence from
randomized controlled trials
because these were likely to
provide much more
reliable information
than other sources of evidence.
