Train the Trainer Course book - Cochrane Public Health Group

Introduction
Welcome to the workshop entitled “Systematic reviews of health promotion and public health
interventions – “train the trainer””.
This workshop will take you through the complete process of preparing and carrying out a two-day
workshop on conducting systematic reviews of public health and health promotion interventions.
This training handbook describes the steps of the systematic review process and provides additional
teaching instructions. The handbook, however, is not intended to be used as a single resource for
teaching others how to conduct reviews. The additional reading is very important to trainers who are
experienced in conducting systematic reviews.
Note: This handbook/workshop is useful for both Cochrane reviewers and reviewers who are
completing a systematic review for their workplace, studies, etc. If reviewers wish to complete a
Cochrane review, they should visit www.cochrane.org (About us – Contact: Groups and Centres) to
find the appropriate Collaborative Review Group to register their interest or contact the Cochrane
Health Promotion and Public Health Field for further information cochrane@vichealth.vic.gov.au.
The trainer’s guide provides information on the time taken for each unit. This is only an
approximation – the time it takes is dictated by the prior knowledge/experience of the participants
and the number of questions. The guide does, however, give you an indication of the time for each
unit if the course was to be run in modular format.
Please note: It is likely that every facilitator will have different levels of knowledge and skills.
Facilitators should draw on their own experiences when teaching this course. Feel free to adapt any
exercises or slides as you see fit.
Overall learning outcomes
This handbook will enable you to learn how to effectively present on the following components of
the systematic review process:
Key challenges of conducting systematic reviews of health promotion and public health
interventions
Formulation of an answerable question about the effectiveness of interventions in health
promotion and public health
Identifying primary studies, including developing evidence-based strategies for searching
electronic databases
Evaluating the quality of both a systematic review and an individual health promotion or
public health study
Synthesising the body of evidence from primary studies
Formulating conclusions and recommendations from the body of evidence
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