Current Projects

Social Franchising for Health Services

The Centre for Systematic Review will spend 2007-2008 conducting a review of the effectiveness of social franchising for health services. Social franchising is defined as a system of contractual relationships "usually run by a non-governmental organization which uses the structure of a commercial franchise to achieve social goals" (Montagu 2002). Current evidence to shape future policy and planning directives in the area of social franchising is an issue of immediate international importance. ICDDR,B is thrilled to have the opportunity to rise to the challenge and once again to develop knowledge for global lifesaving solutions.
The Centre for Systematic Review published a protocol for the social franchising review in Volume 2, 2008 of the Cochrane Database for Systematic Reviews. The completed review is currently under for peer review.
 

Rapid Review

The Centre for Systematic Review is currently engaged in a rapid review of reviews that will attempt to discover what has already been summarized about the role that non-state sector service providers are playing in health service delivery. In addition to providing additional insight into the highly relevant area of the non-state sector, this review of reviews will build upon existing review methodology and then take a departure into piloting innovative strategies to capture the published literature in this area.

As in previous CSR work, this review will address issues that impact ICDDR,B and the people whom we serve and is done with the aim of benefiting decision makers in low- and middle-income countries worldwide.

Cochrane Review of Oral Vaccines for Preventing Cholera

The Centre for Systematic Review is participating in a Cochrane Review of oral vaccines for preventing cholera. One of our scientists has been collaborating with the Cochrane Infectious Disease team at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom.

Activities include:

1. Checking the review methods
2. Updating data extraction form as necessary
3. Finalizing inclusion and exclusion criteria
4. Finalizing outcome variables
5. Assessing methodological quality of the included trials (risk of bias)
6. Extracting data from included trials
7. Reconcile data extraction from other authors
8. Enter the data into RM5