How Do You Know if Health Evidence is Reliable?

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Every day we read or hear about new health research that looks at what might help or harm, limit or extend our lives. Health research is big business and over a million papers are published every year on health-related topics. So how do we find the evidence we need and, more importantly, how do we judge how good that evidence is?

The free online course “Making Sense of Health Evidence: The Informed Consumer” helps you understand whether health evidence is likely to be reliable or not. The course will be of particular interest if you, a member of your family or a friend have a medical condition, so you can understand the evidence for various treatment or management options.

Making Sense of Health Evidence: The Informed Consumer – Course Content

The course includes the following topics:

What factors make some evidence less reliable;
Practical help on how to find the best evidence;
Health research and its terminology;
Some simple tools to help judge whether you can believe it.
Specific weekly case studies including:
- The Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine;
- The use of drugs in pregnancy;
- The impact of dehydration on how well we function.