The Cochrane Collaboration is an international, interdisciplinary effort whose mission is to help physicians, public health practitioners, policy makers and consumers make informed decisions about health care through the preparation, maintenance and dissemination of systematic, continuously updated reviews of randomized controlled trials and other methodologically sound studies of health care and public health interventions. Named after the British epidemiologist Archie Cochrane, the Collaboration is an outgrowth of the movement toward evidence-based medicine and public health. The work of the Cochrane Collaboration is organized around 33 Collaborative Review Groups (CRG) within which the systematic reviews are prepared and maintained. The newest CRG is the CRG on HIV Infection and AIDS, based at the University of California, San Francisco, AIDS Research Institute, and an affiliate of the International AIDS Society, (IAS).
The principle product of the Cochrane Collaboration is The Cochrane Library, which is in essence an electronic journal, published quarterly and distributed on CD-ROM to subscribers. The Cochrane Library includes systematic reviews, an annotated bibliography of high quality systematic reviews published outside the Collaboration, a bibliography of controlled trials and a bibliography on methods of research synthesis and preparation of systematic reviews.
The scope of the new CRG on HIV infection and AIDS is to conduct systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials and other types of methodologically sound controlled studies to evaluate the prevention and treatment of HIV infection and AIDS. We anticipate that an HIV/AIDS module will appear in the June 1998 edition of The Cochrane Library. A variety of meta-analyses have already been published on prevention and treatment of HIV infection and AIDS, and several groups have ongoing meta-analytic projects. However, there is a large amount of material that has not been, as yet, systematically reviewed. Our initial reviews will include reviews of antiretroviral therapy, treatment and prophylaxis of opportunistic infections and malignancies,- behavioral, social and policy prevention interventions,- biomedical prevention interventions,- and interventions involving the provision and financing of health services. We anticipate that within the areas of antiretroviral therapy, behavioral, social and policy prevention interventions; and biomedical prevention interventions our work will be conducted in cooperation with groups that have conducted reviews in these fields already with an aim of converting and extending existing systematic reviews into Cochrane reviews. While much of the searching for relevant trials will be electronic, we also plan to search certain journals by hand, focusing on AIDS-specialty journals, local and regional medical journals not indexed by Index Medicus for trials of AIDS prevention and treatment.
We welcome all collaborators with interests in preparing systematic reviews, peer refereeing reviews and hand searching journals. We invite interested individuals to attend a general meeting of the CRG and to visit our exhibit at the 12th World AIDS Conference in Geneva. For further information, contact Ms Gail Kennedy, by telephone at 415 597-9373 or by electronic mail at mailto:gkennedy@psg.ucsf.edu
Coordinating Editor:
Editors:
Review Group Coordinator:
Gail Kennedy, San Francisco, USA
The Cochrane CRG on HIV/AIDS is supported by grants from the California Healthcare Foundation of Oakland, California, and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation of Menlo Park, California, with additional support from the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, and the National Association of People with AIDS, Washington, D.C.
*Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, Prevention Sciences Group, Son Francisco, California, USA.