An international network of individuals and institutions committed to preparing, maintaining, and disseminating systematic reviews of the effects of health care. It was founded in 1993 in England and named in honor of Archie Cochrane, the eminent physician-epidemiologist. The first such reviews, relating to pregnancy and childbirth, were the prototype studies which led to the decision to form the Collaboration and extend systematic reviews to all interventions in clinical medicine. Reviews, which will emphasize meta-analyses, are to be based on randomized controlled trials (RTC) whenever available. In their absense, the next best studies will be used. Topics for review are selected by groups with special interests in the topics; thus the collection of reviews grows from the bottom up, which insures that each review is developed by people with special motivation. Wide dissemination of information about reviews in progress is expected to enroll collaboration and prevent duplication of topics. The protocol for each review must pass peer review before it can be registered, and the reviews themselves are also peer reviewed. Review groups are registered, and formal training in review melthodology is provided.
A non-profit-making international organization which systematically finds, appraises and reviews available evidence, mainly from randomised clinical trials, about the consequences of health care. The aim is to help people make well-informed decisions about health care. The main work is done by around 50 review groups, the members of which share an interest in generating reliable, up-to-date evidence on the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of particular health problems or groups of problems. The UK. Cochrane Centre opened in Oxford in 1992 and the International Collaboration was launched a year later. Its origins lay in the work of a UK epidemiologist, Dr Archie Cochrane, who in 1979 published a monograph calling for a systematic collection of randomised controlled trials on the effect of health care.