Who is behind this website?

The Testing Treatments interactive website is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) through the James Lind Initiative.

Additional funding has been made available by the Naji Foundation.

Editorial team

The development of this website was led by Patricia Atkinson, Astrid Austvoll-Dahlgren, Douglas Badenoch, Iain Chalmers, Paul Glasziou and Andy Oxman.

Patricia Atkinson is Administrator of the James Lind Initiative, which aims to promote better research to inform better health care, particularly through greater public involvement in research. She assists with updating and administering the development of Testing Treatments interactive, and the sourcing, preparation and uploading of documents for The James Lind Library. Patricia helped to develop the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnerships between 2003 and 2013. Before this she worked in Information Technology in the National Health Service, providing IT services and support for hospitals in the Oxford region.

Astrid Austvoll-Dahlgren is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Public Health with a background in the social sciences and community medicine. Her main research interest over the past 14 years has been in systematic reviews and in developing and evaluating interventions to facilitate informed health decision making. She enjoys teaching evidence-based practice and research methodology, particularly to patients and members of the public. In 2012, she launched a Norwegian website (www.sunnskepsis.no) which enables patients and others to access and apply research evidence. Astrid is responsible for updating the Key Concepts for assessing claims about the effects of treatments and the CLAIM Evaluation Tool for measuring people’s understanding of these.

Douglas Badenoch is an information specialist who is interested in making knowledge more accessible to those who need it. In 2002 he co-founded Minervation Ltd to provide design, development and consultancy services in evidence-based health care. Current and previous clients include Cancer Research UK, the UKCRC , NHS Evidence and NHS Scotland. Prior to that he was Programme Manager at the NHS R&D Centre for Evidence-based Medicine at Oxford University, and before that he was a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde’s Department of Information Science.

Iain Chalmers practised medicine in the UK and Palestine before becoming a health services researcher and directing of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit. In 1992, he became founding director of the UK Cochrane Centre, which convened the meeting at which the international Cochrane Collaboration was inaugurated. Since 2003, he has coordinated the James Lind Initiative, promoting better research to inform better health care, particularly through greater public involvement in research. He coordinates the development of Testing Treatments interactive and edits The James Lind Library.

Paul Glasziou is a researcher and general practitioner concerned about gaps between the findings of high quality research evidence and everyday clinical practice. His work focuses on identifying and removing the barriers to reducing these gaps. He is the author of several books promoting the use of evidence to inform choices and decisions in healthcare, and he edited the BMJ’s journal Evidence-Based Medicine for many years. Between 2003 and 2010 he was director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford. Since July 2010 has been the National Health and Medical Research Council Australia Fellow at Bond University, Queensland.

Andy Oxman works as a health services researcher in the Global Health Unit at the Norwegian instotute for Public Health, where he leads the Informed Health Choices project. His research over the past three decades has focused on ways of helping people to make informed choices about healthcare. Andy completed his medical training in the US in 1979. After that he worked as a general practitioner in northern Norway. He was at McMaster University in Canada from 1984 to 1994 before moving back to Norway.

How we manage the content

The content of this website has been reviewed by the Editorial Team.  For more information about how we find and include learning resources for CARL, please read the About page.  We will be happy to receive your comments, recommendations or suggestions for new resources.

If you find any errors, please let us know using the Comment box. Day-to-day management is by Douglas Badenoch of Minervation.  If you submit a comment or a suggestion, it will most likely be Douglas who moderates it. These comments are included on the site if they are relevant, respectful and honest.

The Team

Editorial team: Patricia Atkinson, Astrid Austvoll-Dahlgren, Douglas Badenoch, Iain Chalmers, Paul Glasziou and Andy Oxman.

Web Production: Douglas Badenoch, Tom Brooks, Robin Layfield.

Advisors: Amanda Burls, Simon Denegri, Ben Goldacre, Sarah Rosenbaum, Nick Ross, Lisa Schwartz and Steve Woloshin.