A national symposium on evidence synthesis began in Delhi on Thursday with a focus on making science and synthesised knowledge the bedrock of all societal and policy interventions in the areas of public health, medicine and social development.


The symposium is being organised by The George Institute for Global Health and the Campbell Collaboration. Delivering the keynote address on 'Synthesising and Contextualising Evidence for Medicine and Public Health in India: Need and Way Forward', Professor Prathap Tharyan said evidence-informed health policy requires investments and partnerships between those who generate the evidence, those who disseminate it, those who frame policies and those who implement them.

Every policy decision should have an evidence footprint, said Tharyan, the Director of B V Moses Centre for Research and Training in Evidence-Informed Health Care and Health Policy at the Christian Medical College, Vellore. Tharyan said that there was a need to recognise systematic review as a legitimate form of original research.

"Currently, the Medical Council of India does not recognise systematic reviews as a form of original research and this needs to change if we need to improve the quality of evidence for policy-making," he said. Dr. Anju Sinha, Deputy Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research, read out a message of ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava and said evidence synthesis was critical in influencing policy and practice that can move us closer towards universal health coverage and sustainable development goals.