1. Touring the World of Evidence
Academic / Research
Literature
Grey
Literature
I will be covering some sources of evidence for child obesity prevention interventions, with a brief overview of academic and research literature
Most of these slides have been provided by Dayna Albert of TEIP – Towards Evidence-Informed Practice,
Here are 4 categories of evidence which are relevant to public health. _____________________________________________________________________
Academic/research literature
Grey literature
Advice - Content Advisors
Advice - Informed Colleagues
Focus on Academic / Research Evidence and a subsequent web-based tour of selected academic research sites
_____________________________________________________________________
Advice
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09

2. Academic Literature Rationale for Use:
Research published in a peer-reviewed publications
Rationale for Use:
High strength of evidence (presumably)
Credible research & results (presumably)
Academic literature is research published in peer-reviewed publications
Considered credible, reliable & high quality due to peer-review process
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09

3. Academic Literature(2)
Limitations
Lag time
Accessibility
Relevance
Implications for practice not fully addressed
Tips
Free access electronic database
Relevant & quality-reviewed sites
Seek advice
Lag time between research & publication means it may not be the most current.
Evidence Limited access to literature - subscription costs
Research may lack relevance for communities and local context
Academic literature seldom provides what to do with the evidence and how to implement it.
Tips for using academic literature
Use free access electronic databases and quality reviewed sites.
Consult academic literature sites which have critically appraised the evidence;
Seek advice -ask individuals who have experience and knowledge in the related topic area, if they can recommend credible evidence sources.
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09

4. Canadian Best Practices Portal
This site provides a rich description of effective programs than can be found in a systematic review
Key Attractions
Over 300 evidence-based best practice interventions for health promotion & CDP
Database of resources (e.g. manuals, assessment tools, etc.)
Much more in planning processes, connections to services and organizations across Canada
Become a member to:
Sign up for RSS feeds or updates for your areas of interest
Post & review comments about interventions
Recommend an interventions or resources to include on the website.
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09

5. ICON Searching – Obesity
Keyword Searches, Simultaneous Searching on health-evidence.ca, and Icon Searching
Submit your Portal
search on
health-evidence.ca
Browse - Click on “Interventions & Resources – Interventions at a Glance” - scroll & use arrow key to view intervention titles OR
2. Quick keyword search – Click on “Interventions & Resources” and then click on “Intervention Search Centre”) - child obesity = 36 results
3. Now you can do a simultaneous search on the Portal and health-evidence.ca
The Canadian Best Practices Portal has partnered with Health-evidence.ca so that searches of both sites can happen simultaneously. The linkage of the two websites allows PortaL users to complement their search findings on various topics with systematic review evidence identified on Health-evidence.ca.
4. Click on an icon [Click “Interventions-at-a-Glance” & then click on an icon e.g. Obesity = 54 results
Narrows list of interventions to those that include the selected icon
ICON Searching – Obesity
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09

6. Health-Evidence.ca www.health-evidence.ca
Health-Evidence is a free, searchable online registry for abstracts of systematic reviews & meta-analyses on the effectiveness of public health interventions
Register: Allows you to save and re-run searches
Search options: Browse vs. Search vs. Disease /Audience / Setting / Intervention for chronic disease prevention
Quality ratings
Summary Statements: Features and how to find them (pdf symbol)
Uses – to find evidence of the effectiveness of an approach
Drawbacks – Lacks implementation advice / specific program details.
If you put in keywords of child obesity (or run simultaneous search through the Portal) you get 7 results
One of which is from June 2010 – “Interventions to prevent obesity in 0-5 year olds”.
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09

7. Public Health + www.nccmt.ca/tools/public_health_plus-eng.html
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Public Health + is a searchable database of abstracts of critically appraised systematic reviews & single studies.
Rated by clinicians for relevance and newsworthiness (7 = highest rating)
Website updated weekly
Provides link to PubMed where you can try to obtain the full article
PROVIDES - evidence of effectiveness
LACKS - implementation advice or program details
SEARCHING ADVICE - use synonyms in the keyword search box.
Search by Author - Ask Content Advisors / Informed Colleagues for advice
Search by Subject - Scan titles for relevance to narrow down which abstracts you will take a closer look at.
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09

8. Effective Public Health Practice Project www.ephpp.ca
Cochrane Library
Effective Public Health Practice Project evidence site
Benefits / Features:
Review topics are identified through a survey of public health practitioners and managers
Summary provides implications for practice & policy
Draft reports are peer reviewed to ensure the relevance
Limitations:
Limited number of topics covered
Not searchable
Cochrane Library is a repository of systematic reviews.
a collection of six databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making.
Limitations – Not easy to use, requires some search and analysis skills. No interventions are presented
There are very few current reviews on child obesity, and those that do exist are captured in Health Evidence.ca
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09

9. Obesity+ http://plus.mcmaster.ca/obesity/Default.aspx
Sponsored by the Canadian Obesity Network and McMaster University’s Health Information Research Unit, the Online Best Evidence Service in Tackling obesitY (OBESITY+) offers
- a searchable database of evidence from over 130 clinical journals focusing on obesity
- an alerting system
Focuses on clinical practice, although there is much for public and community health practitioners
Example: alert on child obesity just returned this article:
Hingle MD, et al.Parental involvement in interventions to improve child dietary intake: a systematic review. Prev Med Aug;51(2): Epub 2010 May 10.  
[see ]
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09

10. Canadian Obesity Network
Canadian Obesity Network provides a good source of news, events and contacts with members.
An example of their news by topic of childhood/adolescence is in this slide.
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09

11. The Community Guide www.thecommunityguide.org
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The American Community Guide website includes 18 different health-related topics (e.g., alcohol, cancer, obesity, tobacco), and the results of systematic reviews to help answer questions about which program and policy interventions have been shown to be effective, whether there are effective interventions that are right for a specific community, and what the intervention might cost or what its return on investment might be.
18 community health topics / 200 interventions [many can be found on the Canadian Best Practices Portal]
Click link to: ‘Obesity’ - Provides background information on topic
Click link to: ‘Interventions in community settings’
Interventions rated as Recommended or Insufficient Evidence
Limitations:
CAUTION - addresses American context & programs – but still useful
When to Use
Looking for effective strategies, interventions & policies in public health
Looking for examples of programs (RTIPS: Research-tested Interventions)
Click link to: RTIPS program – Research-Tested Intervention
Links to an example of a recommended program
Provides programmatic details and info needed to adapt programs
There’s much more – however these are offered as free research sources of evidence on obesity issues.
TEIP Program Evidence Tool - Jul'09