Everyone’s a winner - the pros and pros of volunteering with Evidence Aid Isla Kuhn @ilk21 @evidenceaid June 2018

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Boxing Day 2004: Indian Ocean Tsunami. Professor Mike Clarke (Cochrane) asks: What can we do to help? E-mail sent to all those whom Cochrane had contact details for and who were in the affected area. Psychiatrist (Prathap Thayran) corresponds saying he had been deployed to carry out a form of counselling, called ‘brief debriefing’. What was the evidence…? What was the result? Evidence Aid was born and has responded both reactively and proactively to humanitarian crises since 2004.

To alleviate suffering and save lives by providing the best available evidence on the effectiveness of humanitarian action and enabling its use. Our mission To increase the use of the best available evidence in humanitarian emergency response. To develop understanding of the aims and objectives of Evidence Aid among our peers and those who influence the humanitarian sector. To become financially sustainable to achieve these objectives. Our objectives

Gather, review & make available best evidence Reformat/translate, summarise and distribute Build working relationships with relevant opinion leaders Meetings and events to discuss Training for practitioners and policy makers Our main activities We ensure that the best evidence is gathered, systematically reviewed and made freely and easily available, using online resources. We provide the evidence in different formats (resources, collections of evidence, summaries, translations of summaries) including contextual summaries, and use both passive and active distribution methods. We build working relationships with relevant opinion leaders (e.g. the ‘Prevention and treatment of acute malnutrition’ collection of evidence). We hold meetings and organise events to discuss Evidence Aid, it’s mission and activities, and create opportunities for collaborations with opinion leaders, as well as contributing to raising understanding of the generation and use of high quality evidence. We provide training for practitioners and policy makers in how to use the best available evidence (next course is 10th April 2018).

To stimulate, create and satisfy an increasing demand for evidence to improve the impact of humanitarian aid by stimulating the use of an evidence-based approach. Our purpose

We enable you to take an evidence based approach to humanitarian aid and persuade others to do the same Our core messages We believe that those in need have the right to receive humanitarian aid that has been proven to be effective and not harmful. With an increasing demand for ‘value for money’, proof of impact and effectiveness in the provision of humanitarian aid, it is essential to ensure that decisions and activities are evidence-based. We believe that, together, we need to ensure that we do no harm and that humanitarian activities are as effective, timely and appropriate as possible. We enable maximum impact on investment by running an agile organisation with a scientific approach, capitalising on a robust and responsive network. We identify and bridge the gaps in evidence through collaboration with those who understand and provide evidence and those who ensure its application.

“This is no longer acceptable “This is no longer acceptable. The sector must increase its efforts to demonstrate impact and it must use evidence on what works and what does not and why to improve its performance.”1 1 – Humanitarian Emergency Response Review, Chaired by Lord (Paddy) Ashdown, page 28, March 2011.

What do I know? Evidence matters What skills do I have? Searching Synthesising Organising

Contributing to an existing collection: Zika

Creating synopses of new reviews on zika & dengue virus Slack – “there’s articles for you to synthesis” Mendeley – get the article Google Drive – write the synopsis Dropbox – share it Slack - “I’ve done it!” Website - published

Contributing to the creation of a new collection: Prevention and treatment of acute malnutrition in emergencies and humanitarian crises Summaries will be translated into Spanish and French (translators without borders) http://www.evidenceaid.org/prevention-and-treatment-of-acute-malnutrition-in-emergencies-and-humanitarian-crises/

Devising the search strategy Running the searches (multiple databases) What was (is) involved? Devising the search strategy Running the searches (multiple databases) Deduplication Title/abstract screening double screening Dispute resolution Full text reviewing Double screening Process tracking Regular conference calls & emails Strategy reviewed by experts, and was based on collaboratively developed PICO More than 23 collaborators from various organisations (MSF, Cochrane, WHO, Save the Children, Action against Hunger, SUN, World Food Programme etc) 12 sources 4646 total de-duplicated papers Cochrane reviews were creamed off (463) as separate work stream for complimentary collection After initial sense check, 1475 papers distributed to experts for title/abstract screening 3 pairs – all of whom went through 3 rounds of disagreements! 343 full text have been double reviewed so far by 14 pairs (some people doing several sets of reviews) So far, 41 papers have made it to the final collection, the Cochrane collection is still to come, and it’s still growing

Aby is coordinator of refugee health Shona coordinating zika best way to tackle a problem is like eating an elephant – this is my contribution Aby is coordinator of refugee health Shona coordinating zika Coordinator role for nutrition http://pngimg.com/download/18782

How to get involved How to Get Involved Currently recruiting volunteers Students and professionals from all countries are welcome! Contact info@evidenceaid.org @EvidenceAid Facebook LinkedIn How to Get Involved

Thank you! Any questions?