Science-ish blog checks health-related headlines against the evidence

July 25, 2011 - The McMaster Health Forum has partnered with Maclean’s magazine and The Medical Post in a pilot project aimed at ensuring that research evidence on a wide array of issues related to health and healthcare is better used in public statements and debates.

A new blog, available on the Maclean’s website and written by Medical Post associate editor Julia Belluz, fact checks health-related claims made in the media or other public domains by utilizing databases containing systematic reviews. (A systematic review is essentially a summary of the findings of individual studies on a particular topic and is considered the most credible form of evidence.)

The blog dubbed Science-ish has been launched to check health-related headlines against the evidence, and point out where politicians, opinion leaders and journalists could do better. Ultimately the blog’s aim is to improve the quality of information provided to the public about health-related issues and to enhance reporting on health research.

Science-ish has access to the Health Systems Evidence database managed by the Forum, as well as three others: Health-Evidence.ca, based at McMaster and focused on public health topics; Evidence Updates, which is a joint project of McMaster’s Health Information Research Unit and the BMJ Evidence Centre that supports decisions on clinical topics; and the Cochrane Library, which provides independent, high-quality evidence on a range of topics.

Steven Hoffman, an adjunct faculty member at the Forum, initiated the partnership. Mike Wilson, a research fellow with the Program in Policy Decision-making and McMaster Health Forum who was instrumental in the establishment of the HSE database, has provided training to blog writer Belluz on how to use the four databases to find systematic reviews that support or refute health-related claims.

An advisory committee consisting of McMaster faculty has been established to support the blog. The advisory committee includes Forum Director John Lavis, Hoffman and Wilson for health system issues; Maureen Dobbins and Donna Ciliska from the School of Nursing for public health issues; and Brian Haynes and Gordon Guyatt from the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics for clinical issues.

Since launching in June, the blog has examined a range of topics including breast cancer screening, the safety of asbestos, and genetically modified foods.