In the last few days before the Australian federal election, a curious $5million advertising campaign has been launched which claims to be advocating evidence-based policy but does nothing of the kind.
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Why can’t newspapers be more critical when they report findings from research and evaluation, and provide easy links to more details? A new study by researchers from Australia’s major government research instution (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation – … Continue reading
In the medical profession in particular, there are some very rigid beliefs about what constitutes good enough “evidence of effectiveness” to justify offering, recommending, allowing patients to try, or even just not vehemently opposing a particular type of treatment for a patient.
There are some glimmers of hope in other sectors (e.g. in the Best Evidence Synthesis work here in New Zealand). But there are still three areas where there are very serious challenges in building a credible evidence base given the kinds of constraints and realities surrounding them. They are: (1) cutting-edge treatments; (2) treatments that are by their very nature tailored/individualized rather than standardized across patients or populations; and (3) learning what works for small sub-populations Continue reading
This week we are revisting a classic moment in Australian comedy which seems strangely relevant to this week’s headlines.
Jane at Real Evaluation
Patricia at CIRCLE (RMIT)