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4 - Evidence-Based Health-Care

from Part 1 - The Public Health Toolkit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2023

By
Padmanabhan Badrinath  and
Stephen Gillam
Edited by
Kirsteen Watson ,
Jan Yates  and
Stephen Gillam
Kirsteen Watson
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Jan Yates
Affiliation:
NHS England and NHS Improvement
Stephen Gillam
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

How much of what health and other professionals do is based soundly in science? Answers to the question, ‘Is our practice evidence based?’ depend on what we mean by practice and evidence.

The expansion of evidence-based medicne (EBM) has been a major influence on medical practice over the past 25 years. In this chapter, we examine the nature of what is nowadays more broadly referred to as evidence-based health-care (EBHC) and discuss its limitations. It is worth noting that in the UK this field continues to expand, particularly into the arena of social care, which often goes hand in hand with the provision of health-care. Increasingly, the term ‘evidence-based practice’ (EBP) is used as a catch-all. While this chapter focuses on health-care, the principles of EBP we describe apply equally to other disciplines, including public health and policy.

Keywords

Evidence-basedcritical appraisalliterature searchresearch questionevaluationPICOeffectiveness
Type
Chapter
Information
Essential Public Health
Theory and Practice
 , pp. 82 - 94
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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