PHRG Editorial board and Contributors

The work of the PHRG will be carried out by a dedicated group of volunteer editors and paid support staff. As well as providing feedback on reviews, the editorial team will develop policies and guidelines for the Group to ensure reviews are of high quality and reflect the needs of end users. The planned editorial process is outlined in our draft module, however, this will be subject to change should the editorial group identify more appropriate processes for progressing and updating reviews.

Co-ordinating Editor

Professor Elizabeth Waters

Professor Waters is currently Professorial Fellow: Public Health and Health Equity at the McCaughey Centre The McCaughey Centre: VicHealth Centre for the Promotion of Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne.

Professor Watershas co-authored six published Cochrane reviews to date:

  • Family and carer smoking control programmes for reducing children's exposure to environmental tobacco smoke
  • Interventions for educating children who have attended the emergency room for asthma
  • Interventions for preventing obesity in children
  • Interventions for treating obesity in children
  • Interventions implemented through sporting organisations for increasing participation in sport
  • Policy interventions implemented through sporting organisations for promoting healthy behaviour change

Professor Waters is also currently involved with several public health reviews at title stage and has peer reviewed and provided editorial advice on relevant reviews for other CRGs.

The editorsof the PHRG each come to the group with content and research methods expertise in public health topics. There may be a need for more editors than in other Cochrane Review Groups as the breadth of topics covered by this group is potentially very large and content expertise will be an important factor of a strong editorial group. We have recruited several people willing to act as editors within the new PHRG.

Editors

Professor Margaret Whitehead(UK)

Professor Margaret Whitehead isWH Duncan Professor of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Liverpool, UK, and Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Policy Research on Social Determinants of Health. Professor Whitehead’s key research interests for over two decades have been on policies and strategies to reduce social inequalities in health and in health care and this has been the focus of her work with WHO and various EU research networks. With Mark Petticrew, Sally Macintyre and Hilary Graham, she has been PI on the ESRC Centre for Evidence Based Public Health Policy. This centre has carried out numerous systematic reviews on non-healthcare policies and interventions and their impact on public health, with special reference to inequalities in health. Professor Whitehead has been a co-author on seven systematic reviews of:

  • Employment policies, including the effectiveness of welfare-to-work programmes, the psychosocial and health effects of workplace reorganisation, the health and welfare effects of changing the organisation of shiftwork;
  • Equity of health systems, including how far universal health care systems have achieved equity of access;
  • Population level tobacco control policies and their impact on inequalities in health

She is also carrying out methodological research on appraising implementation of complex social interventions and knowledge translation on assembling the evidence base for tackling inequalities in health.

Dr Mark Petticrew(UK)

Dr Mark Petticrew is Honorary Professor, Medicine - Community Based Sciences, University of Glasgow, and Co-Convenor of the Cochrane Health Equity Field.

Dr Petticrewhas co-authored 2 published Cochrane protocols/reviews to date:

  • Financial benefits for child health and well-being in low income or socially disadvantaged families in developed world countries
  • School feeding for improving the physical and psychosocial health of disadvantaged elementary school children

Dr Petticrew has also been an author on many other systematic reviews, including Campbell reviews, of public health interventions.

Dr LaurieAnderson (USA)

Dr Laurie Anderson is Affiliate Professor, Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, andScientific Coordinator for the US Guide to Community Preventive Services, USA.

Dr Anderson’s work at the CDC, over the past decade, has focused on the conduct of systematic reviews in public health for the US Task Force on Community Preventive Services. She haslead systematic review teams for evidence synthesis in the areas of public health nutrition, obesity prevention and control, and upstream sociocultural determinants of health inequalities (e.g. family housing, early childhood development, culturally competent healthcare systems).

Dr Anderson is currently a co-author on a Cochrane review at draft protocol stage:

  • Socialmarketing strategies for promoting healthy eating in children and young people.

Associate Professor Maureen Dobbins(Canada)

Maureen Dobins is an Associate Professor with the School of Nursing, McMasterUniversity, and Health Associate with the City of Hamilton, Social and Public Health Services, Ontario, Canada.

Maureen’s research focus includes: knowledge transfer and uptake and evidence-based decision making among public health decision maker, including identifying barriers to research utilization among public health decision makers; identifying factors facilitating the use of the results of systematic reviews for program decision making; understanding the information needs of public health decision makers; evaluating the use of systematic reviews in the development of guidelines for public health practice; understanding the program planning decision-making process of public health organizations to determine where research evidence fits into the process; evaluating knowledge transfer strategies through the use of a randomized controlled trial, and exploring the knowledge broker role in practice.

Maureen was integral to the development of the web site a registry houses all reviews evaluating the effectiveness of public health and health promotion interventions published since 1985.

Maureen has led or been a co-author on five reviews by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination on The Cochrane Library:

  • The effectiveness of community-based heart health projects: a systematic overview (lead author)
  • The effectiveness of school-based interventions in promoting physical activity and fitness among children and youth: a systematic review (lead author)
  • The effectiveness of home visiting as a delivery strategy for public health nursing interventions: a systematic overview
  • A systematic overview of the effectiveness of public health nursing interventions: an overview of adolescent suicide prevention programs
  • Effectiveness of physical activity enhancement and obesity prevention programs in children and youth

Professor Helen Roberts (UK)

Profesor Helen Roberts is currently Professor of Child Health, at the Social Science Research Unit of the Institute of Education, University of London. Helen has been involved with many systematic reviews of complex social interventions including:

  • Child poverty and health: scoping for a systematic review of existing evidence
  • A systematic review of the effectiveness of financial benefits to families in reducinginequalities in child health
  • A systematic review of lay perspectives on infant size and growth
  • Exploring methodological and practical issues in the systematic review of factorsaffecting the implementation of child injury prevention initiatives

With Mark Petticrew she also wrote “Systematic reviews in the social sciences: a practical guide” (published by Blackwells in 2006). She also has a methodological interest in narrative synthesesof qualitative and quantitative evidence.

Dr OmarAbdulwadud (Australia)

Dr Omar Abdulwadud is aResearch Fellow within the Department of Health Science at MonashUniversity, in Melbourne, Australia. His major competencies lie insystematic/literature review/evidence evaluation; public health epidemiology/disease surveillance; international health; clinical and health services research; program monitoring and evaluation, and research design and methodology.

Born in Ethiopia and with a past history of working on public health projects in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Saudia Arabia, Dr Abdulwadud brings a rich knowledge and understanding of issues for developing countries to the editorial team.

Dr Abdulwadud has been involved in 4 Cochrane reviews

  • Home based HIV voluntary counselling & testing in developing countries (review published)
  • Structural and community-level interventions for increasing condom use to prevent HIV & other sexually transmitted infections (ongoing).
  • Genotypic antiretroviral resistance testing for HIV infection (Protocol submitted)
  • Interventions in the workplace to support breastfeeding for women in employment (review published)

Dr Gil Ramirez (USA)

Dr Ramirez is Director and Professor, Master of Public Health Program at Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in California. His research portfolio includes numerous systematic reviews and meta-analyses, several of which have been conducted as part of the AHRQ Evidence-based PracticeCenter (San Antonio) and the Cochrane Collaboration. He currently serves as the president-elect of the Southern California Public Health Association and is a member of The Task Force on Community Preventive Services, with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Economics Editor

Dr Alan Shiell(Canada)

Professor (Health Economics) in the Population Health Intervention Research Centre in the Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary. Alan holds aHealth Scientist award from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Researchand a CIHR Chair in the Economics of Public Health. He has been involved in three systematic reviews, and one Cochrane review(co-registered with Campbell):

  • Financial benefits for child health and well-being in low income or socially disadvantaged families in developed world countries (published protocol).

Dr Shiell’s research interests include the development and application of methods of economic evaluation of complex public health interventions; priority setting in public health, and; social capital, social networks and the promotion of health and well-being.

Feedback editor

Dr Philip Baker(Australia)

Dr Philip Baker is Senior Epidemiologist – Advanced Clinician with Queensland Health, in BrisbaneAustralia.Dr Baker is second author on one published Cochrane review, Family-based programmes for preventing smoking by children and adolescents. Philip is currently contact editor for the public health title, Collaboration between local health and local government agencies for health improvement(registered with the EPOC Group).He has also supported the production of other Cochrane reviews which were refereed to the CPHP Field. Philip has workplace support to undertake Cochrane Editorial responsibilities. Dr Baker works within the state public health sector as a practitioner and also as a contributor to policy development. He has experience in the conduct of controlled trials, community-based evaluations, health technology assessments, epidemiological investigations of both chronic and communicable diseases, the application of reviews to decision making, and the day to day operations of public health units. Dr Baker’s interests include Aboriginal health, knowledge translation through summary tables, remote communities and training the population health workforce in Evidence-Based Practice.

Developing Countries Consultant Editor
DrRuhi Saith(India)

Dr Saith heads the research programme at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) which has been set up recently to build capacity in public health in India. This is to be done through eight institutes around different parts of the country which will provide academic degrees, undertake research and advocacy in public health. Her research interests and expertise span medical, public health and development studies and include analysis of quantitative as well as qualitativedata. Dr Saith has undertaken research in various aspects of poverty analysis and policy, social exclusion and participatory approaches to reducing poverty. Her work history includes positions with the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development and the United Nations Development Programme, among others. More recent work includes participation in a World Bank project investigating the Health Needs of Poor Women in South Asia, and a position with the Planning Commission of the Government of India.

Statistical Editors

Dr Robin Christensen(Denmark)

Dr Robin Christensen is senior biostatisticianat The Parker Institute: Musculoskeletal Statistics Unit, Frederiksberg Hospital, Denmark. Dr Christensen’s interests are inthe design and analysis of clinical trials, statistical methodology related to disease processes and health care delivery, systematic reviews and meta-analyses and the development and assessment of decision support technologies for patients and clinicians. His application areas cover multiple biostatistical areas within the context of evidence-based rheumatology and obesity. He has a keen interest in public health and is looking forward to the challenge of providing statistical advice to public health review authors. Robin is also a statistical editor with the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group.

Professor Sreekumaran Nair (India)

Professor Sreekumaran (Sree) Nair is Professor of Biostatistics & Head, Department of Statistics, Manipal University, India. Dr Nair is a resource person of many institutions in their regular workshops on Research methodology and Biostatstics. His past research includes design and analysis of clinical trials, Epidemiological survey and Epidemiology of maternal and child health. His current research includes systematic review and meta-analysis, data mining, missing data analysis and cancer epidemiology. Dr. Nair is also the coordinator of The South Asian Cochrane Network, Manipal site, and a statistical editor of the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Review Group. He has 4 protocols and one review published in The Cochrane Library.