The big picture – Putting evidence at the centre of everyday life

>> Watch a recording of the webinar

In this first session of the series, we’re diving deep into four ‘what works’ streams for putting evidence at the centre of everyday life, namely:

  • helping citizens judge what others are claiming or more generally find (and receive) reliable information on a topic
  • making evidence available to citizens when they are making choices
  • engaging citizens in asking questions and answering them (with new research or with existing evidence)
  • making evidence-based choices the default or easy option.

The webinar series is hosted by three groups working together to ‘put evidence at the centre of everyday life,’ including Cochrane (the world’s largest producer of evidence syntheses and home to the Cochrane Consumer Network), the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges (with one if its three implementation priorities being ‘putting evidence at the centre of everyday life,’ which is being overseen by the Citizen Leadership Group), and the World Health Organization’s Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) with its new work on Citizen Engagement in Evidence-informed Policymaking.

Hosts

  • Maureen Smith (co-host), Co-chair, Citizen Leadership Group, Evidence Commission (Canada)
  • Modupe Adefeso-Olateju, Co-chair, Citizen Leadership Group, Evidence Commission; and Managing Director, The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre (Nigeria)

Speakers (in order of appearance)

  • Allen Nsangi, Behavioural Scientist/Research Fellow at Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Informed Health Choices Project (Uganda)
  • Susan Akol, Kololo High School (Uganda)
  • Tracey Brown, Director, Sense About Science (United Kingdom)
  • Adam Salisbury, Senior Research Associate, GiveWell (United States)
  • Rebecca Maeso, Assistant Director, James Lind Alliance (United Kingdom)
  • Richard Morley, Consumer Engagement Officer, Cochrane and Cochrane Consumers Network (United Kingdom)
  • David Halpern, The Behavioural Insights Team (United Kingdom)
  • John Lavis, Co-lead, Evidence Commission (Canada)

Series Description

Citizens frequently make decisions where evidence would be helpful but face many challenges in doing so—from too much or inaccessible information to the deliberate spread of misinformation. This webinar series titled, Putting evidence at the centre of everyday life: A global webinar series for citizen leaders and citizen-serving NGOs, pushes past the rhetoric about engaging citizens in evidence-informed decision-making and zeroes in on actionable ways to help citizen leaders and those who serve them, e.g., non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments – from finding reliable information to knowing which types of questions to ask to making evidence-based choices the default or easy option, and more. While these are early days in understanding ‘what works’ in putting evidence at the centre of everyday life, this global webinar series will identify what is going well that needs to be systematized and scaled up, and what gaps should be prioritized to fill, and to work with government policymakers and citizen-serving NGOs, among others, to push for these improvements.

Hosted by Cochrane (and the Cochrane Consumer Network), the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges (and its Citizen Leadership Group), and the World Health Organization’s Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet), this four-part webinar series takes place between June 2023 and January 2024: