Evidence Synthesis Overview

Evidence Synthesis Service aims to provide rigorously produced, high-quality, synthesised evidence to ensure those policy decisions are informed by best-available evidence. The intended recipients of our evidence synthesis services are policymakers, practitioners and civil society.

We synthesise evidence on health systems issues that focus on:
Finance | Human resources | Service delivery | Governance | Information | Effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of interventions | Implementation lessons from other countries

We can provide the following products:

• Evidence maps: an interactive visual interface that provides an overview of the size, nature and quality of available evidence in order to inform and facilitate policy decisions and research
• Umbrella reviews: synthesised evidence from multiple systematic reviews to help offer concrete evidence on a broad topic.
• Effectiveness systematic reviews: synthesised evidence from primary studies (mostly randomised controlled trials) to provide the precise effect of interventions, policies or causes.
• Qualitative evidence syntheses: synthesised evidence from primary qualitative studies to provide information on factors that facilitate or impede implementation, the role of context, and the experience of implementers and beneficiaries.

Contact Details

• Jane Groudge:
  +27 (0) 11-717 3425
  jane.goudge@gmail.com

Project Partners/Collaborators

• Health Systems Research Unit at the South African Medical Research Council
• Cochrane South Africa
• Centre for Evidence-Based Health Care, University of Stellenbosch
• Africa Centre for Evidence