DIS student takes part in Cochrane/Campbell Colloquium

Deirdre Beecher (a current DIS Masters student) attended and presented at the 2010 Joint Colloquium of the Cochrane & Campbell Collaborations in Keystone, Colorado, USA. "Bringing Evidence-Based Decision-Making to New Heights" 18 - 22 October 2010

Deirdre works as a Trials Search Co-ordinator for the Cochrane Multiple Sclerosis Review Group and writes…

“This year’s location for the Colloquium was ideal, high up in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado at almost 3000 metres we were accommodated in the Keystone skiing resort surrounded by beautiful snow capped mountains, pine forest trees and lakes. We were warned about the wildlife, and yes a BEAR was spotted!
This year’s Colloquium was unique in that it brought together two disciplines: medicine and the social sciences. The Cochrane Collaboration (http://www.cochrane.org/) helps people make well-informed decisions in producing systematic reviews on health interventions, whereas the Campbell (http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/) produces systematic reviews in education, crime & justice, and social welfare.
There were a number of interesting speeches one of which was from the former USA Democratic representative, Patricia Schroeder who spoke on her political life and the present state of politics. Throughout the week there were a wide range of workshops and presentations. Some sessions focused on searching and information retrieval: designing search strategies, searching trials registries, and much more.
Towards the end of the week we attended a barn dance at the Keystone Stables were we had a BBQ, were entertained by a local country music singer and of course we line danced, well we tried at least!”

Deirdre presented a poster outlining the objectives and research stages of the IN-DEEP project on which the Cochrane Multiple Sclerosis Review Group is working in collaboration with the Italian and Australian MS Societies and the Centre for Health Communication and Participation, La Trobe University, Australia. The project aims to provide high quality research based information for people with MS.

Deidre also gave a presentation at the  'Comparing Multiple Interventions Methods Group (CMIMG)' meeting. This is a new group that aims to address the ever increasing interest of the Cochrane Collaboration in reviews that involve multiple interventions. The presentation focused on the methodological, administrative and conceptual challenges associated with such reviews.