Teaching school children about evidence-based medicine: Cochrane UK ’s outreach programme

Since 2016 Cochrane UK has been visiting secondary schools in and around Oxford to talk about Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) and its relevance in our everyday lives. They started with visiting an after-school Science Club and now boost a growing portfolio of schools who welcome them into their classrooms.  Cochrane UK   have taught pupils from Years 9 -13 in formal lessons and in extracurricular science and medical clubs. Their talks and workshops aim to bring an awareness of why it is important to question the evidence behind medical claims. They use topical newspaper headlines to illustrate how medical evidenc e can be misrepresented in the media - how it can sometimes be inaccurate and sometimes just plain wrong. They also illustrate the relevance of EBM on a personal, everyday level by looking at how we choose cold remedies to how we consider medical interventions at national and global levels, using th e HPV vaccination programme as an example. They also cover  what constitutes a randomised controlled trial and how a systematic review is produced.                    Recently Cochrane UK organised their second half day workshop on EBM. Twenty-five Year 12 students   from local schools took part. Students were introduced to our Citizen Scientist platformCochrane Crowd,  a collaborative volunteer effort to help categorise and summarise healthcare evidence. With the students logged into Cochrane Crowd, they were challenged to screen   as many abstra...
Source: Cochrane News and Events - Category: Information Technology Authors: Source Type: news