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Update on the Evidence-Based Practice for Public Health Website

The Evidence-Based Practice for Public Health website, http://library.umassmed.edu/ebpph, is being transformed from a research project website to an online portal of evidence-based public health (EBPH) resources. The newly designed website is an outcome of the Evidence-Based Practice for Public Health (EBPPH) project based at the Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School. One of the project’s main outcomes was a research study that investigated the information needs of public health professionals. Through focus groups and interviews, we found that public health professionals want single portal access to credible public health information, particularly to systematic reviews and evidence-based guidelines. The participants also stated that it was often difficult to know where to search for information and how to formulate a search strategy to get quality results. Many were not aware of EBPH resources currently available for public health practice. The newly designed EBPPH website is an attempt to meet the information needs of public health workers and create an online tool for easy access to EBPH resources.

With so many excellent resources out there, it’s often hard to know where to start searching, especially when free time is not in great abundance. To help with the search process we arranged selected resources along a pathway of evidence to allow public health practitioners to easily find and use the best evidence to develop and implement effective interventions, programs, and policies. The Evidence-Based Pathway links to Evidence-Based Guidelines, Systematic Reviews, Filtered Searches of the Literature, and to Best Practices in Public Health.

Users can also find the evidence by searching across all EBPH resources by using the new Google custom search tool.

Another finding from the research study is that public health practitioners want access to FREE resources. The selected EBPH resources are all available for free online access. We have also provided links to free public health journals and bibliographic databases.

• Review current resources on the site: Do they meet our selection criteria? Are they still being kept up-to-date? Are the descriptions accurate?
• Review and reorganize material from the original research project’s website and decide if to keep or to mothball.
• Create a section for learning more about EBPH and finding and appraising resources.
• Identify, review, and provide access to additional EBPH resources and public health journals and databases.
• Classify subject-specific resources by knowledge domain of public health.
• Consider other sources of “evidence” further down the pathway – i.e. surveillance data, grey literature, policy statements, conference proceedings, and emerging new information.
• Evaluate the overall look and feel of site: Is the content useful? Is the site user friendly? Is it well organized? Is it visually attractive? Ideas for improvement?

Yours truly, Hathy Simpson, NER Public Health Coordinator, is taking on the main responsibility of the EBPPH website redesign, with a bit of help from my friends. I would love your input, ideas, and inspiration! If you have any questions or comments about the site or public health outreach in the New England Region, please contact me at Hathy.Simpson@umassmed.edu or 508-856-2085.