PubMed Health, CRD announce new partnership

A new partnership between the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) at the University of York and PubMed Health is launched today.

PubMed Health is a new online service provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) - the world's largest medical library. The service provides summaries and full text of selected systematic reviews and also provides information for consumers and clinicians based on those reviews

Systematic reviews are widely recognised as reliable sources of information about the effects of healthcare interventions. But as with individual research studies, they can be hard to find, may have flaws and can be difficult to interpret.

Since 1994, CRD has been producing and maintaining DARE, a database which uniquely provides access to over 11,000 abstracts of quality assessed and critically appraised systematic reviews. The database has become a key resource for health professionals and policy makers as it provides its users with a 'bottom line' on the overall validity and reliability of each review.

The new partnership involves CRD providing DARE content to PubMed Health.

Deputy Director of CRD Dr Amanda Sowden said: "CRD aims to produce and disseminate high quality evidence to inform health care decision making in the UK and internationally. Our partnership with PubMed Health is an exciting and prestigious development that will help give our database content truly global reach."