Announcing the establishment of Cochrane Russia

We are happy to announce the establishment of Cochrane Russia as a branch of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, with co-ordinating hub at the Kazan Federal University.
 
The International Conference “Evidence-Based Medicine: achievements and barriers” will become an official launch of Cochrane Russia, with detailed discussions of Cochrane Russia's strategic development, as well as opportunities for development of the strong network of Cochrane contributors/satellites all over the vast territory of the Russian Federation and Russian-speaking countries.
 
This will be the first Cochrane event in Russia in history (!) and the third conference in Kazan that is totally independent of the pharmaceutical industry or other health technology manufactures.
 
At the conference we will discuss the most important issues of evidence-based approaches in healthcare delivery, health policy such as clinical guidelines, and how they are influenced by misleading health information; Cochrane evidence to inform decision-making; regulation and use of medicines; and conflicts of interest. All of these issues directly depend on rigorous evidence as the scientific basis of medicines' value to public health, as well as the dissemination of Cochrane evidence to the health community and general public.
 
Among the priority problems are the following:
 
- national clinical guidelines development and misleading health information;
 
- the role of Cochrane evidence to inform decision-making;
 
- conflicts of interest and their impact on public health and pharmaceutical management.
 
These were identified by the leadership of the Russian Federation, President V.V. Putin and Prime-minister D.A. Medvedev, as the priority issues for change.
 
The scientific program will include plenary sessions of invited speakers including international leaders in evidence-based medicine and the Cochrane network, representatives of the World Health Organization, International Society of Independent Drug Bulletins, and the leading Russian scientists in the field.

We invite all in the Cochrane community with interest in Russia and/or Russian-speaking countries to get in contact with Cochrane Russia:
Lilia: lezign@gmail.com

We wish all the best to Cochrane Russia!