News
Disasters affect millions of people and cost billions of dollars, but people affected and those trying to help them don’t always have good access to the best information on what they might do. Evidence Aid will change this. It has just been awarded the 2013 Unorthodox Prize, for an extraordinary and innovative approach to improving the lives of the world’s most disadvantaged people.
Evidence Aid was established by members of one of the world’s largest organisations in evidence based health care, The Cochrane Collaboration, and seed funded by the Collaboration and the scientific publisher Wiley. It now works with many humanitarian agencies across the world.
Evidence Aid makes it easier for people in the disaster and humanitarian sector to find reliable, independent information on interventions and strategies that might help, as well as identifying those that are ineffective or might even be harmful. Professor Mike Clarke, one of the founders of Evidence Aid who is based at the Centre for Public Health in Queen’s University Belfast said, “People affected by disasters deserve the best care and those making decisions need the best evidence on what works, doesn’t work and is unproven. Evidence Aid will meet that need.”
Evidence Aid helps planners, policy makers, doctors, nurses, charity workers and others before, during and after natural disasters and other humanitarian emergencies. The Unorthodox Prize of $10,000 and potential for follow-on funding will support this work and help Evidence Aid reach its full potential. Evidence Aid was selected from more than 250 entries from around the world.