← Back to series HSCI 241

Finding and Synthesizing Health Evidence

Office Hours, the companion podcast for HSCI 241

Each episode is a conversation between Sarah and Kiffer about one lesson of the course. Every episode page has the audio with a visual companion and captions, a short summary, a list of chapters and a downloadable transcript.

Reviews & review questions

Lessons 01–02

Evidence Synthesis and the Family of ReviewsThe lesson explains why single studies can mislead, describes the family of reviews from narrative to living reviews and environmental scans, and shows how to choose a review type and register a protocol.

Review Questions, Eligibility Criteria and ProtocolsThe lesson shows how to write review questions with PICO, PECO, PCC and SPIDER, draft eligibility criteria that two reviewers can apply consistently, and adapt the PRISMA-P checklist into a protocol with input from a librarian and interest holders.

Searching for evidence

Lessons 03–06

How Databases and Search Engines Find InformationThe lesson explains how databases index records with controlled vocabularies such as MeSH, how Boolean retrieval differs from the relevance ranking of Google and Google Scholar, and why reviews favour recall over precision.

Building and Documenting a Database SearchThe lesson shows how to build a concept table, write a MEDLINE strategy with Boolean operators, truncation and field tags, translate it to other databases, and peer review and report the search with PRESS and PRISMA-S.

Grey Literature, Web Searching and Citation ChasingThe lesson covers the kinds of grey literature and their Canadian sources, targeted website searching with advanced operators, backward and forward citation chasing, and the documentation that makes these searches reproducible.

Artificial Intelligence in Evidence Retrieval and SynthesisStudents learn how large language models and retrieval-augmented tools produce answers and fabricated citations, how to evaluate, verify and disclose the use of AI research tools, and how active-learning screening performs.

Screening, extraction & appraisal

Lessons 07–08

Managing Records and Screening StudiesThe lesson manages search results in Zotero, sets up dual screening in Covidence or Rayyan, measures agreement with Cohen's kappa, and draws a PRISMA 2020 flow diagram whose numbers reconcile.

Data Extraction, Risk of Bias and Certainty of EvidenceThe lesson shows how to design and pilot a data extraction form, select and apply risk-of-bias tools matched to study design with a second reviewer, and rate the certainty of a body of evidence with GRADE.

Synthesis, review types & scans

Lessons 09–11

Synthesizing Quantitative FindingsThe lesson tabulates and groups studies, introduces synthesis without meta-analysis and the SWiM guideline, explains why vote counting by statistical significance misleads, and sets out when pooling is justified.

Scoping Reviews, Rapid Reviews and Qualitative Evidence SynthesisStudents learn the JBI method and PRISMA-ScR for scoping reviews, the shortcuts and trade-offs of rapid reviews, the main approaches to qualitative evidence synthesis with GRADE-CERQual, and evidence and gap maps.

Environmental ScansThe lesson explains what an environmental scan is and how it is used in health services, and covers document and website review, program inventories, surveys of organizations, key informant interviews, charting and reporting.

Reporting & translation

Lesson 12

Reporting and Translating Review FindingsThe lesson shows how to report a review to PRISMA 2020 and its extensions, build characteristics and summary of findings tables, prepare plain-language summaries and evidence briefs, and plan updates and living reviews.