Raffaella’s Literature Update
Ref. Ravinetto R, Singh JA. BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine Epub ahead of print. doi:10.1136/bmjebm-2022-111967
Dear Friends,
Today, I took advantage of my role of coordinator of this platform, to share an ‘invited analysis’ that I recently co-authored with Jerome Singh in the BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.
Traditionally, the results of medical and health research were first shared within the scientific community, and then ‘translated’ into lay language for policymakers and other audiences via the media, policy briefs, lobbying. Today, preprints and press releases often come first. In our short analysis, we navigated the challenges and opportunities presented by dissemination through peer-review publications, abstracts, and preprints, whose primary audience are the scientific community, health system policy-makers and regulators; press releases, which are primarily aimed at influencing the market and society as a whole, and not suited for scientific appraisal; and media coverage and social media, which cascade upstream information and further spread knowledge, but with risks of catalyzing misunderstanding or overemphasis.
In table 1, we summarize recommendations for good dissemination practices, specifically aimed at researchers, research institutions, developers (pharmaceutical companies), medical journals editors, media, journalists, social media actors, medical opinion leaders, policymakers, regulators, and the scientific community. All these stakeholders should integrate ethics and integrity in their policies and behaviors, to ensure timely, comprehensive, accurate, unbiased, unambiguous, and transparent dissemination of research findings – which is critical for research to achieve its social value, and to bring benefit to the individuals and communities.
I hope this can be an interesting reading for researchers, postgraduate students’ coaches, and teachers, and for any actors involved in communication and dissemination of health research.
Have a nice weekend,
Raffaella