The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently launched new guidance on best practices for clinical trials. The document aims to reinforce global standards in the organization, design, conduct, analysis and reporting of clinical trials. It responds to calls in World Health Assembly resolution 75.8, which emphasized the urgent need to enhance both global and national clinical trial ecosystems to generate high-quality evidence on health interventions.
Cochrane’s Editor in Chief, Dr Karla Soares-Weiser, contributed to the technical advisory group established to support the resolution and this guidance.
The WHO guidance offers practical recommendations to assist national health authorities, regulatory authorities, funders and others in facilitating effective clinical trials and research. Key recommendations centre on improving trial design to ensure the relevance of research; an emphasis on scientific and ethical standards; strengthening of capacity and support for sustainable research infrastructure; enhancing clinical trial transparency; and reforms to enable underrepresented groups to participate in clinical trials.
Eva Madrid, the Lead of Cochrane’s new Iberoamérica Evidence Synthesis Unit, spoke on the panel of the launch event for the new guidance. She highlighted the need for greater engagement between those conducting clinical trials and the evidence synthesis community. Eva stated:
“Disregarding existing evidence leads to redundant findings and fails to prioritize the gaps that we need to fill, missing the opportunity to resolve clinical uncertainties with clinical trials."
In his opening statement, Dr Jeremy Farrar, WHO Chief Scientist, said: “Clinical trials are the bedrock of clinical and public health policymaking and evidence informed policymaking” and urged that they should not only be set up in times of crisis and are used for “answering critically important and clinical and public health questions all of the time.”
If you would like to find out more about Cochrane’s work on clinical trials, please get in touch with the Advocacy and Partnerships Team: msalman@cochrane.org