Sharing disturbing news about evidence synthesis and evidence based practice in Canada. /Scott
Some of you may have heard about the large layoffs of librarians and research staff (half their staff) at Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH). These librarians are experts in evidence synthesis and I have used their resources monthly (they have a great database of search filters), they are also responsible for the PRESS checklist, the Grey Matters checklist, and for providing evidence syntheses services to support the development of recommendations.
I am very alarmed by this change, it will impact evidence synthesis work and research at numerous institutions globally, and would encourage you to read and consider the petition below.
The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) was "established by Canada's federal, provincial, and territorial governments to be a trusted source of independent information and advice for the country's publicly funded health care systems." At least that's what they claim on their website! But recently, they laid off half of their Research Information Services staff, the people who help prepare independent reviews of the medical evidence for decision-makers. Instead, they are asking the drug companies themselves to provide knowledge syntheses.
These choices by CADTH directly impact the medications government plans pay for and the objectivity of CADTH recommendations also pose a big problem for smaller provinces that don't have their own health technology assessment agencies. They'll be pressured to provide funding for expensive (and possibly ineffective) drugs based on the drug companies' own evidence. CADTH isn't just a national leader in providing objective assessments of new drugs and health technologies, they used to be a model that the rest of the world admired. CADTH's Research Information Services team created evidence-based search tools that other agencies, governments and university researchers use to find and prepare the best evidence on a range of topics, from COVID-19 to Indigenous Health to Cancer Care. The cuts to CADTH's Research Information Services team impacts health researchers around the globe.
We're asking CADTH to take these important actions:
- Restore objectivity to knowledge syntheses! Make sure knowledge syntheses used to make decisions are produced independently and in a way that is transparent, reproducible and without bias.
- Restore information services that the staff of CADTH and the provincial partners use to make evidence-informed decisions.
- Ensure the decisions informing the changes at CADTH are based on the best available evidence! Just like they claim on their website.
Scott Marsalis
Social Work Librarian &
Director, Sciences, Agriculture & Engineering
University of Minnesota Libraries
My pronouns are he/him
I acknowledge that the University of Minnesota is located on the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of Indigenous people.