 Sandy Muecke, PHC RIS
<www.mcmasterhealthforum.org>
Policy makers and those who support them may find the McMaster Health Forum of great use. The Forum, incorporated within McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: “develops programs and organizes events which provide a range of outcomes to help action-oriented stakeholders work towards sustainable solutions to important health challenges at the regional, national and international level.”
Of particular interest on this website are the freely available tools and resources (see link in ‘About Us/Our Resources’). ‘Forum Tools’ include a one page document entitled Finding and Using Research Evidence. A step-by-step table guides the user along a well structured pathway – clarifying the problem, identifying useful resources, and implementing the solution. Whilst this publication includes local Canadian literature resources, it also provides links to many universally relevant libraries of systematic reviews.
A link to a comprehensive suite of SUPPORT Tools can also be found on this page. These tools, presented in an extensive collection of publications, provide insights into a transparent, systematic and evidence-informed policy decision-making process, from the initial problem conceptualisation, to the construction of policy briefs and the conduct of policy dialogues.
The ‘Forum Resources’ section provides a portal to two databases of systematic reviews. The first, Health Systems Evidence is a “continuously updated online repository of synthesized research evidence related to governance, financial and delivery arrangements in health systems and to implementation strategies that can support change within health systems”.
The user interface for this database facilitates an easy information search. Policy briefs, overviews of systematic reviews, and systematic reviews for health system related topics can be found at this site. Direct links to some reviews are also included. ‘Health evidence.ca’ contains reviews relating to public health issues and can be found via the second link in this section.
The last ‘Forum Resources’ link is to the McMaster Health Knowledge Refinery learning site. Here, strategies can be found that are designed to assist readers with critical appraisal of the literature. Three McMaster collaborators are the final listing on this useful webpage.
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