Welcome to Evidence Aid’s final newsletter of 2023, in which we spotlight our many achievements of the last 12 months — from completing the Resilient Health Systems (RHS) project to delivering a range of webinars on topics such as health emergency preparedness and the use of systematic reviews for humanitarian decision-makers. Albeit exciting, such accomplishments are set against a backdrop of a world facing a complex nexus of crises: From structural inequity to conflict, conflict to climate change, climate change to displacement, if nothing else, this past year has revealed to us just how interconnected our shared world is.
As such, we here at Evidence Aid believe that now, perhaps more than ever before, the world needs evidence-based, apolitical, and accessible disaster response information. The humanitarian crises we collectively faced this year are only likely to worsen with time, driving us to both prepare for, and react to disasters. In June, when the United States, Canada, and parts of the UK received a series of pollution alerts, warning the public of hazardous air quality and wildfire smoke, we published a newsletter comprised of protection resources and interventions to improve indoor air quality. In July, when the United Nations launched 2023’s AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, we reported on their findings, including a speech delivered by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who called for action-oriented and science-based policies to address gaps in health care, climate change, and humanitarian intervention.
Our work at Evidence Aid is not only vital for knowledge exchange, but it is essential to a range of actors, including policymakers, experts, NGOs, front line professionals, and donors who possess both the power and influence to impact preparedness and response mechanisms in humanitarian crises. That is why we urge you, as readers, audience members, stakeholders, and decision-makers, to take a moment after you’ve finished reading this newsletter to consider donating to ensure our work continues. Your kindness will be used to not only sustain existing evidence summary collections, but to also develop new projects that better respond to our ever-evolving world. We thank you for your continued support, and we hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter.
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January – April: At the start of 2023, we spent some time considering the future of Evidence Aid — our products, our audience, and how we can best reach the people who need us most. This marked the beginning of our newest phase of work on the RHS collection in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization (WHO/PAHO) in March 2023. These first months were also defined by the creation of two new pages on our website: ‘What people say about us’ and ‘Commissioned projects’, as well as the delivery of an online roundtable on “Building Adaptation and Resilience in Heat Waves” whose presentation can still be viewed here.
Following the wake of the devasting impacts of the Türkiye/Syria earthquake, we shared a sequence of information from our Managing Mental Injuries in Disasters and Earthquakes collections. We also shared findings from the 2023 Centre of Excellence for Development Impact ad Learning (CEDIL) Conference.
Additionally, our work on the WHO Knowledge Hub, which included the development of an online information-sharing platform that provided up-to-date evidence and knowledge on Health Emergencies and Disaster Risk Management (EDRM), ended on 7 April 2023.
May – August: May and June were the months of webinars. On 11 May 2023, Ahmad Firas Khalid, on behalf of Evidence Aid, presented, “Advancing Knowledge Translations to Contribute to Resilience in Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery: The Role of Evidence Aid.” On 24 May 2023, we delivered, in collaboration with WHO/PAHO, a webinar titled “Introducing Phase 2 of the Evidence Aid Collection on Building Resilient Systems in the Context of Health Emergencies and Disasters” which highlighted the addition of 90 new summaries to our RHS collection. Then on 30 May 2023, the African Community for Systematic Reviews & Meta-analyses hosted “Translating Systematic Reviews to Plain Language Summaries” with Evidence Aid’s Claire Allen, as well as Ana Beatriz Pizarro and Ahmad Firas Khalid. Finally on 12 June 2023, hosted in tandem with McMaster Global Health Annual Review, we delivered a webinar titled, “Translating Evidence for Policy Makers: The Resilient Health Systems Evidence Collection.”
In July and August, in addition to our coverage of the AI for Good Global Summit, we highlighted the WHO Global E2P, or evidence to policy, summit. From 29 – 31 of August 2023, participants took part in conversations about the need for scientific information and evidence-informed policy networks for future development. Also in August, we successfully updated the majority of our evidence collections with topics such as corruption in construction and disasters caused by natural hazards and refugee experience of the Australian healthcare system.
September – December: In the final months of this year, with recognition of the earthquakes in Morocco, the floods in Libya, and the deadly crises across Gaza, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, to name only several, we highlighted resources such as PTSD among children and adolescents after earthquakes and floods and delivery of emergency care services in post-conflict or conflict-affected settings. We also delivered several webinars including ‘Summarising systematic reviews for decision-makers in the humanitarian sector’ and How evidence can improve urban health emergency preparedness’. Finally, several Evidence Aid staff members had the honor of attending the Cochrane Colloquium in which they showcased posters regarding how evidence-based humanitarian action can build resilient health systems.
Throughout the month of December, we completed Phase 3 of the RHS project which included new evidence summaries such as ‘Tools and checklists for evaluating hospital disaster preparedness (search done in 2013)’ and delivered a webinar on 13 December, titled ‘Strategic approaches to Implementing resilient health systems frameworks in the context of emergencies and disasters: insights from Advisors of the Resilient Health System evidence collection’ which you can watch here.
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In short, this year has been a year full of growing, learning, and adapting to our similarly changing world. We recognize, however, that none of this growth could have been possible without the help from everyone here at Evidence Aid. Three of our volunteers and interns, Sophie Dearden, Emily Meier, and Vidhi Ramnarain ceaselessly promote our summaries and the work of Evidence Aid through our social media accounts.
Twitter @Evidence Aid
Facebook Page & Facebook Group
Linked In @Evidence Aid
Instagram @evidenceaid
Other interns, including Fatima Abbas, Riwa Deghaim, Joly Ghanawi, Eszter Szocs, Grace Shepherd, and Grace Meng, support the important work of summarizing the systematic reviews for our evidence collections. Jenny Hu, Anoushka Jere, and Jawaria Karim all serve on our project teams, supporting projects like our Knowledge Hub at WHO and business development. Drew Baldwin also supports Evidence Aid’s communications, writing the bi-weekly newsletters and bulletins that reach your inboxes. Finally, Daisy Little and Isabelle Tahmazian are both integral to our office support team. Thank you, to all our volunteers and interns both past and present, for you are the backbone of this organization.
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We hope you have a safe holiday season and hope that you share this newsletter and highlight our work with anyone who might find it useful and interesting. And, if you don’t already receive our newsletters directly and would like to, please email info@evidenceaid.org.
Thank you for your support and continued reading! Happy holidays.
