Cochrane Public Health Review Prioritisation Process
UPDATE: Methods and findings published: Identifying topics for future Cochrane Public Health reviews | Journal of Public Health | Oxford Academic (oup.com)
1. Purpose
To determine the priorities of Cochrane Public Health (CPH) in order to:
a. direct potential resource expenditure (including editorial support time) to existing incomplete reviews, updates and planned reviews;
b. decide whether inactive incomplete reviews should be retained; and c) develop new priority topics.
2. Governance
The CPH Review Prioritisation and Knowledge Translation Working Group will lead the priority setting process.
3. Stakeholders
A stakeholder analysis will be conducted to identify relevant current and potential stakeholders of CPH. Stakeholders that represent priority populations (as defined by CPH) will also be sought to ensure equity of approach. The intent to undertake the review prioritisation process will also be made public through usual Cochrane and CPH communication methods to provide an opportunity for any additional stakeholders to be involved that weren’t identified through the stakeholder analysis process.
For each stakeholder, information will be collected on:
- their influence and reach;
- the extent in which they would like to be involved in the review process;
- any CPH-relevant priorities they may have already established through their own priority setting process.
4. Methods
Step 1: Identified stakeholders will be contacted to provide their CPH priorities through a short online survey. An open public link to the survey will also be advertised through usual Cochrane and CPH dissemination methods (e.g. Cochrane KT website, Reviews and Methods Digest, Centre and Fields Digest, Comms Network Digest, CPH website and CPH mailing list).
Step 2: Existing stakeholder priority lists will be collated and added to the priorities identified through the online survey.
Step 3: A workshop will be conducted to group and rank stakeholder priorities.
Step 4: The Cochrane Public Health Review Prioritisation and Knowledge Translation Working Group will:
- review stakeholder top priorities for appropriateness and feasibility
- compare stakeholder top priorities against CPH’s current list of incomplete reviews, updates and planned reviews
- develop final list of new and existing priority review topics.
5. Timeframe
This process will determine review priorities for CPH for the next 5 years.
6. Dissemination
The review prioritisation methods and outcomes were published in 2021 - Identifying topics for future Cochrane Public Health reviews | Journal of Public Health | Oxford Academic (oup.com)