Workshop W50

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Helping to ensure review relevance: exploring the potential benefits and costs of multi-perspective review advisory groups.

Rebecca Rees and Josephine Kavanagh.
Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre), University of London, London, UK.

r.rees doesnotexist@cochrane.org ioe.ac.uk

Objective: At the end of the workshop, participants will:

have considered the potential benefits and costs of multi-perspective advisory groups for systematic reviews;
have been exposed to a variety of methods for eliciting and engaging with stakeholder perspectives within review advisory groups;
have had an opportunity to share their own and others' experiences of review advisory groups.

An evaluation of this workshop will also help inform guidance on this topic being produced by the Cochrane Health Promotion and Public Health Field.

Summary: There can be gaps in understanding between review authors and review users and gaps between the production of reviews and use of review findings. Consumers in particular can contribute otherwise overlooked perspectives on a review topic. Collaboration with other review users, such as practitioners and policy makers, can help review authors tap into practice- or policy-based knowledge and help make a review more influential. Despite a growing interest in review advisory groups to elicit stakeholder input in reviews, there has been little systematic investigation of how such groups might work. This workshop will use presentations of case studies, a practical exercise and discussion to explore the potential for multi-perspective review advisory groups, the processes involved, and the potential impact on review relevance.

This workshop will involve a presentation of experiences from two reviews in health promotion that have used multi-perspective advisory groups. This will be followed by work in groups that will include experience of methods used to facilitate such groups and discussion of practical and methodological issues.

The style of the workshop will be informal. Presentations will be brief and interactive. Discussions will be conducted in small groups to facilitate participation.

Level of knowledge required to attend: basic.