CITATION: Bull World Health Organ. 2021 Sep 1; 99(9): 610–610A.
Strengthening the evidence base for decisions on public health and social measures
Delia Enria et al.
Published online 2021 Sep 1. doi: 10.2471/BLT.21.287054
‘The introduction of public health and social measures has been one of the key strategies to curb the transmission of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)…
‘In June 2021, the World Health Organization launched a new multiyear initiative on measuring the effectiveness and the social, health and economic impact of public health and social measures during health emergencies. The initiative aims at strengthening the global evidence base to provide actionable and evidence-informed guidance on such measures for decision-makers. Taking the larger individual and societal impact of these measures into account, the initiative will apply a multidisciplinary and multiple-methods approach promoting randomized trials and observational research.
‘Key expected outcomes of the first year include a global evidence review, a global research agenda and a framework to generate, monitor, compare and evaluate research and policies on such measures. As a first step, experts will assess the existing evidence, discuss ethical and methodological challenges when generating knowledge and share lessons learnt from country implementation during a technical consultation in early September 2021…’ …more