Empowering Australian patients through access to better health decisions
Australian patients and their health care practitioners will benefit from ongoing access to The Cochrane Library, an online resource published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., on behalf of The Cochrane Collaboration, that features over 5000 published systematic reviews of evidence for health care interventions; ranging from surgical procedures and drugs to behavioural therapies and preventive care. Cochrane reviews provide independent high-quality evidence to aid in health care decision making.
The Australian Government, through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), has renewed funding for Australia’s national licence to the Library. This means every Australian will continue to be able to access reliable information about what works and what does not.
Australians are the highest per capita users of the Library in the world. In 2011 Australians viewed 708,000 Cochrane abstracts online and downloaded 501,642 full reviews. The three most popular reviews in Australia were models of care for childbearing women, preventing falls in older people living in the community, and zinc for the common cold. The most popular review internationally looked at interventions for preventing obesity in children.
NHMRC CEO Professor Warwick Anderson said that NHMRC is committed to a health literate society where all Australians benefit from access to the latest health and medical research.
“Access to high quality research evidence is being increased through support of The Cochrane Library and NHMRC’s open access policy on the research it funds. Ongoing promotion of research findings will ensure translation into clinical practice.”
Ongoing support for The Cochrane Library is recognition of the vital role systematic reviews play in informing policy and practice.
“Continuing to provide access to the Library will ensure Australia remains a significant contributor to the Cochrane Collaboration, and the leading user of the best available research evidence,” Professor Anderson said.
The renewal of The Cochrane Library licence marks the 10th anniversary of the announcement of the original licence at the Cochrane Colloquium held in Melbourne in 2002.
