The Cochrane Collaboration and the Occupational Health Field

1
The Cochrane Collaboration and the Occupational
Health Field

• Jos Verbeek

2
Cochrane Collaboration

• Mission
• to provide up to date evidence on the effects of
  health care
• Products
• systematic reviews of healthcare interventions
  (in Cochrane Library)
• Name
• after Archie Cochrane, British epidemiologist
• Organisation
• global network of 50 review groups that produce
  systematic reviews supported by fields and
  centres
• involves 10.000 persons on voluntary basis and
  small professional staff all over the world
• Web address
• www.cochrane.org

3
Cochrane Entities
Review Groups
Centres
Steering Group
Methods Groups
Fields
Consumer Network
4
Cochrane Review Groups (CRGs)

• Address treatment, prevention or diagnosis of a
  certain disease or (group of) health problem(s)
• Prepare systematic reviews with clinically
  relevant outcomes
• Maintain a trial register
• Support reviewers
• Review Group Examples

• Acute Respiratory Infect.
• Back
• Breast cancer
• Dementia, Cognitive Improvement
• Effective Practice and Organisation of Care

• Infectious Diseases
• Muskuloskeletal
• Pregnancy Childbirth
• Schizophrenia
• Public Health and Health Promotion

5
Cochrane Centers
6
South African Cochrane Centre

• Only Cochrane Centre in Africa
• Recruitment of authors of Cochrane Reviews
• Training workshops, mentoring and support for
  authors
• Cochrane reviews on relevant topics
• Subscription agent for The Cochrane Library
• Promotion of EBP in African region
• www.mrc.ac.za/cochrane

7
Cochrane Library

• www.thecochranelibrary.org
• Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR)
• reviews
• protocols
• Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials
  (CENTRAL)
• Cochrane Database of Methodology Reviews
• Cochrane Methodology Register
• About the Cochrane Collaboration

8
Ccohrane Occupational Health Field

• FIOH started Occupational Health Field in
  Cochrane Collaboration
• funding from FIOH, Ministry of Health, FinOHTA,
  Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs, NIOSH Australia
  
• officially registered with CC in May 2004
• integrated in Knowledge Transfer Team since 2006
• Cochrane Occupational Health Field (COHF)
• mission
• to provide up to date evidence on the effects of
  occupational health interventions
• www.cohf.fi

9
Scope of Occupational Health Field

• Occupational health interventions
• strategies or activities aimed at reducing
• exposure to health hazards at work
• worker behaviour that is unfavourable to health
• occupational or work-related diseases, injuries
  of disorders
• occupational disability and avoidable sickness
  absence
• Evidence of effectiveness
• all trials with a comparison group
• time series

10
Tasks Occupational Health Field

• To stimulate the conducting of Cochrane
  Occupational Health Reviews
• To maintain database of occupational health
  intervention studies
• To provide information on the website
• www.cohf.fi

11
What is already in the Cochrane Library

• 39 reviews on occupational health
• Examples
• Back pain and return to work
• physical conditioning and behavioural approach
  effective in chronic back pain not in acute back
  pain (CD001822)
• Vocational rehabilitation for schizophrenia
• supported employment more effective than
  pre-vocational training (CD003080)
• Smoking cessation at the workplace
• individual programmes as effective as in primary
  care
• bans effective in reducing exposure to smoke
  (CD003440)
• Screening for lung cancer
• not effective (CD001991)

12
Recent new COHF Reviews

• Preventing occupational stress in healthcare
  workers
• limited evidence on effectiveness of both
  work-directed and person-directed interventions
  (CD002892)
• Interventions for occupational accidents in the
  construction industry
• recent legislation in the US does not show
  effectiveness (CD006251)
• Interventions for treatment of dysphonia
• limited evidence of effectiveness (CD006373)
• Interventions to promote the wearing of hearing
  protection.
• interventions among young people effective
  (CD005234)
• Manual material handling advice for preventing
  and treating back pain in workers
• no evidence of effectiveness (CD005958)

13
Support by COHF

• Search strategy for Medline
• example specific search for OH interventions
• (workti OR occupationti)
• Database with occupational health intervention
  studies
• Courses for Cochrane Reviewers
• Training material
• Methods articles
• Evidence base for occupational health
• Verbeek SJWEH 2004
• Search strategy for occupational health
  interventions
• Verbeek OEM 2005
• Evidence base for occupational health
  interventions
• Ruotsalainen AJIM 2006
• All available at web-site
• www.cohf.fi

14
Collaboration

• Possibilities
• Contribute to wish-list
• Start a review (3 months full-time)
• Help with funding for reviews
• Participate in Cochrane Reviewers courses
• Participate in evidence-based medicine or how to
  use evidence courses
• Contact
• jos.verbeek_at_ttl.fi
• Website
• www.cohf.fi