On 2013 Dec 23, Joseph Ana commented:

I want to join Neil P. in his comments about the challenges that researchers, authors and indeed clinicians face in low Income countries when it comes to evidence based practice. Those same points came up in the last annual workshop of the Association of editors of scholarly publication in Nigeria (AESPN) in August this year. In addition, even though access and literature search online is spreading in LICs, the infrastructure is still at snail speed, relatively very expensive and unreliable because of perennial power shortage. What ever the current situation, Meyers's paper has helped to shine global light on the challenges with evidence based practice in LICs and PubMed has given us a unique opportunity to contribute to the discussion. A problem once identified is on its way to a solution. Congratulations.

On 2013 Dec 23, Neil Pakenham-Walsh commented:

Thank you Sascha Meyer for drawing attention to the critical role of systematic reviews in low- and middle-income countries. The finding that only 5.7% of neonatal and 14.3% in neuropaediatrics Cochrane Reviews originate from middle and low-income countries is likely to be a reflection of several factors, including: 1. Most research is conducted in high-income countries, with a disproportionate focus on high-tech, high-cost, specialist medicine (and the benefits of such research are not accessible to the vast majority of the world's citizens)<br> 2. Health professionals and researchers in low-income countries often maintain 2 or 3 jobs simultaneously, and it may be difficult to invest the considerable (and often unremunerated) time to undertake a systematic review.<br> 3. Health professionals and researchers in low-income countries often may not have access to Ovid Medline, which is arguably essential for doing systematic reviews. (Ovid Medline provides more sophisticated search functions as compared with free PubMed.) Ovid regrettably has not joined HINARI, the WHO-publisher initiative that ensures free access to electronic journals, ebooks and databases in low-income countries. 4. It would be helpful if systematic reviews that are relevant to low-resources settings were made more easy to find through use of tagwords. HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is the coordinator of the HIFA2015 campaign and co-director of the Global Healthcare Information Network. He is also currently chair of the Dgroups Foundation (www.dgroups.info), a partnership of 18 international development organisations promoting dialogue for international health and development. He started his career as a hospital doctor in the UK, and has clinical experience as an isolated health worker in rural Ecuador and Peru. For the last 20 years he has been committed to the global challenge of improving the availability and use of relevant, reliable healthcare information for health workers and citizens in low- and middle-income countries. He is particularly interested in the potential of inclusive, transdisciplinary communication platforms to help address global health and international development challenges. He has worked with the World Health Organization, the Wellcome Trust, Medicine Digest and INASP (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications). He is based near Oxford, UK. www.hifa2015.org neil.pakenham-walsh AT ghi-net.org

On 2013 Dec 23, Neil Pakenham-Walsh commented:

Thank you Sascha Meyer for drawing attention to the critical role of systematic reviews in low- and middle-income countries. The finding that only 5.7% of neonatal and 14.3% in neuropaediatrics Cochrane Reviews originate from middle and low-income countries is likely to be a reflection of several factors, including: 1. Most research is conducted in high-income countries, with a disproportionate focus on high-tech, high-cost, specialist medicine (and the benefits of such research are not accessible to the vast majority of the world's citizens)<br> 2. Health professionals and researchers in low-income countries often maintain 2 or 3 jobs simultaneously, and it may be difficult to invest the considerable (and often unremunerated) time to undertake a systematic review.<br> 3. Health professionals and researchers in low-income countries often may not have access to Ovid Medline, which is arguably essential for doing systematic reviews. (Ovid Medline provides more sophisticated search functions as compared with free PubMed.) Ovid regrettably has not joined HINARI, the WHO-publisher initiative that ensures free access to electronic journals, ebooks and databases in low-income countries. 4. It would be helpful if systematic reviews that are relevant to low-resources settings were made more easy to find through use of tagwords. HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is the coordinator of the HIFA2015 campaign and co-director of the Global Healthcare Information Network. He is also currently chair of the Dgroups Foundation (www.dgroups.info), a partnership of 18 international development organisations promoting dialogue for international health and development. He started his career as a hospital doctor in the UK, and has clinical experience as an isolated health worker in rural Ecuador and Peru. For the last 20 years he has been committed to the global challenge of improving the availability and use of relevant, reliable healthcare information for health workers and citizens in low- and middle-income countries. He is particularly interested in the potential of inclusive, transdisciplinary communication platforms to help address global health and international development challenges. He has worked with the World Health Organization, the Wellcome Trust, Medicine Digest and INASP (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications). He is based near Oxford, UK. www.hifa2015.org neil.pakenham-walsh AT ghi-net.org