Evidence and global health equity

Spotlighting resources relating to Evidence and Global Health Equity

World Evidence-Based Healthcare Day has a special place on our calendar of events at JBI. The Day was initiated by JBI in 2020 and each year it grows in strength and influence. The World EBHC Day campaign in 2023, 'Evidence and Global Health Equity' is a call to action to 'change our ways of doing' and to help embed and foster health equity in evidence ecosystems globally.

JBI Evidence Synthesis

This year we marked the fourth World EBHC Day with a special issue of JBI Evidence Synthesis to reflect the 2023 campaign ‘Evidence and Global Health Equity’.

Editorial, Ensuring trainees are prepared to address broader societal factors that impact health, emphasised the urgency of teaching students to identify the drivers of health disparities and develop innovative solutions to address health inequities on a global scale.

There should be a sense of urgency for educators, students, clinicians, and policymakers to join JBI, Cochrane, and other global leaders in evidence-based health care to use those skills and expertise to generate new evidence and inform ways of embedding equity in health care, which is particularly relevant to this year’s World Evidence-Based Healthcare Day 2023 theme of evidence and global health equity.

The published editorial was accompanied by an Editorial in Motion:

In the lead up to 20 October, JBI spotlighted a number of systematic reviews and scoping reviews published by JBI Evidence Synthesis that focused on health equity.

Collage of sample of tweets from JBI relating to published articles on health equity

Introduction to Evidence and Global Health Equity

JBI was proud to host the official World EBHC Day event, a webinar which served as an introduction to evidence and global health equity. Chair of the World EBHC Day Steering Committee, Bianca Pilla, opened the webinar which was moderated by Nasreen Jessani, also a Steering Committee Member.

Panellists Lynn Hendricks, Lawrence Mbuagbaw, Jordi Pardo Pardo, Ritin Fernandez and Soumyadeep Bhaumik shared their stories and their thoughts on inequities across evidence ecosystems.

Blogs and vlogs on evidence and global health equity

A number of JBI staff contributed to the campaign by blogging.

Zoe Jordan blogged about fostering empathy, equity and collaboration within the evidence ecosystem, Mara Lambert and Melanie Dankel wrote about a JBI Evidence Synthesis initiative for improving the accessibility of scientific research to promote equity, and Lucy Lizarondo blogged about the work JBI undertook with Australia Awards to deliver a tailored Clinical Leadership Workshop to help address health inequity in Papua New Guinea

Heather McCulloch wrote about the global shift to advance health equity in her blog about the 2023 referendum on amending the Constitution to establish an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice in Parliament, and Bianca Pilla explored equity in global collaborative networks in her blog:

In 2023, we reached the halfway point for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the global commitment to ‘leave no one behind’. In the same year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) celebrated 75 years by advocating Health for All.

Zoe Jordan and Bianca Pilla also recorded vlogs:

JBI Collaboration embraces World EBHC Day 2023 campaign

In 2023 the JBI Collaboration joined efforts with JBI to support World EBHC Day 2023 and engaged strongly with the campaign, contributing more blogs than ever (see below for list of blogs).

The JBI Collaboration also supported the campaign by hosting free events officially recognised by World EBHC Day, such as the webinar on evidence implementation for the promotion of health equity by the Portugal Centre for Evidence Based Practice

EBASE Africa held a storytelling workshop, ‘An African-led approach for health guidelines’, and contributed two vlogs on storytelling for equitable access to evidence.

We have been delighted by the ever-increasing participation in World EBHC Day by the global evidence community, and especially by the JBI Collaboration.

Next year promises to be even bigger, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) will launch a special issue of its Bulletin to coincide with World EBHC Day 2024!

The WHO has issued a call for papers for this special issue with a focus on establishing the impact of WHO’s normative and standard-setting functions The deadline for submissions is by 1 March 2024.

We look forward to World EBHC Day 2024 as we continue to interrogate and challenge our thinking to help ensure we are addressing equity, diversity and inclusion in everything that we do.