Evidence Based Public Health

Evidence based medicine includes asking clinical questions that can be answered by re‐ search, finding the best available evidence based on available research, judging whether the evidence is accurate and applicable to the patients, and applying this evidence in clinical practice [1]. The aim of evidence based medicine in “Public health” is to apply the current best knowledge from research in the prevention, detection, and care of health disorders [1]. The importance of use of scientific knowledge for policy making has grown over the last two-three decades. Systematic review of all the available research data are undertaken to limit bias in the systematic assembly, critical appraisal and pooled result synthesis [2]. The use of evidence based approach helps in distinguishing effective interventions from less ef‐ fective interventions. Evidence based medicine has been systematized by several groups, es‐ pecially the U.S. Preventive Services Task Forces and Cochrane Collaboration [3, 4]. The Task Force on “Community Preventive Services” was formed with an aim of synthesizing the scientific information on effectiveness of disease prevention and health promotion inter‐ ventions [5], and has reviewed hundreds of related topics. Half of the interventions re‐ viewed by task forces have been considered as insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness, because of inadequate quality and/or inconsistent evaluation outcomes.