 | Mila Petrova Research Associate - Cambridge University, Department of Public Health and Primary Care |
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01.07.2016-31.08.2016
Health research synthesis studies - treasure troves and Pandora's boxes
I am research associate in the Palliative and End of Life Care Group, Primary Care Unit, at the University of Cambridge. My background is in Psychology (Clinical and Counselling and Work and Organisational, Sofia University, Bulgaria) and in Philosophy (MA in Philosophy and Ethics of Mental Health, University of Warwick, UK and PhD in Philosophy, University of Exeter, UK). While at Brocher, I will be completing papers from my PhD, which addresses philosophical and methodological issues around health research synthesis studies. Research synthesis studies, of which the systematic review is the exemplar methodology, are the cornerstone of Evidence Based Medicine. I explore how we “transform” evidence in the many steps between abstracting it from the primary studies and including it in the research synthesis. This has direct implications for how much we trust in what is considered, by some authors, the most influential type of health research.
Welcome to my profile! I am research associate in the Palliative and End of Life Care Group, Primary Care Unit, at the University of Cambridge. My background is in Psychology (Clinical and Counselling and Work and Organisational, Sofia University, Bulgaria) and in Philosophy (MA in Philosophy and Ethics of Mental Health, University of Warwick, UK and PhD in Philosophy, University of Exeter, UK).
While at Brocher, I will be completing papers from my PhD, which addresses philosophical and methodological issues around health research synthesis studies. Research synthesis studies, of which the systematic review is the exemplar methodology, are the cornerstone of Evidence Based Medicine. I explore how we “transform” evidence in the many steps between abstracting it from the primary studies and including it in the research synthesis. This has direct implications for how much we trust in what is considered, by some authors, the most influential type of health research.
I argue that our evidence synthesis methods are far less trustworthy than those of us endorsing Evidence Based Medicine believe. I describe a new type of infrastructure - of "distributed big research synthesis databases", representing a merger between ideas from research synthesis and Big Data, professional and citizen science, and empirical and theoretical work.
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