Toolkit to Help People Evaluate Evidence, Claims, Studies

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Blogs/30049?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyHeadlines&utm_source=WC&eun=g273261d0r&userid=273261

By: Gary Schwitzer  |  December 08, 2011

As one clear sign of how we want to help improve the flow of health care information – not just criticize things we see that are communicated inadequately – we’ve built a section of HealthNewsReview.org called The Toolkit.  We plan to continue to add to the Toolkit as time permits and we welcome your nominations for topics you’d like to see addressed.
We think that journalists and consumers can learn from reading the collection of primers, backgrounders, and links that we’ve gathered there.

The Tips For Understanding Studies  include:

• Does The Language Fit The Evidence? – Association Versus Causation
• Resources for Reporting on Costs of Medical Interventions
• “Off-label” Drug Use and Marketing
• 7 Words (and more) You Shouldn’t Use in Medical News
• News from Scientific Meetings
• Absolute vs. Relative Risk
• Number Needed to Treat
• Commercialism
• Single Source Stories
• FDA Approval Not Guaranteed
• Phases of Drug Trials
• Medical Devices
• Animal & Lab Studies

A collection of other resources for evaluating claims & analyzing news coverage

• The Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making – non-profit organization that has been the sole sponsor of this project since it was launched in 2006.
• Media Doctor Australia – pioneering site, first of many comparable international efforts
• Media Doctor Canada – run by our friend Alan Cassels
• Medien Doktor – the German HealthNewsReview – run by our friends Marcus Anhäuser and Holger Wormer. I helped train their reviewers.
• Media Doctor Hong Kong
• Media Doctor Japan
• NHS Choices Behind the Headlines – British site that touches on news coverage but focuses more on evaluating research upon which news is based.
• Medizin-transparent.at – Austrian site similar to British “Behind the Headlines
• Association of Health Care Journalists
• Statement of Principles for Association of Health Care Journalists
• Disease Mongering info on SourceWatch.org site
• Tipsheet for reporting on drugs, devices and medical technologies
• Cochrane Library
• Therapeutics Initiative/Therapeutics Letter
• Healthy Skepticism – international organization
• Testing Treatments book (available free online)

Our list of independent experts – which, by the way, will soon be updated – is meant to help journalists who may not know where to find non-conflicted sources for their stories.