2021 Evidence Foundation Scholar Receives Health Equity Travel Scholarship

The Evidence Foundation is proud to announce that spring 2021 GRADE Workshop Scholar Ifeoluwa Babatunde, Pharm.D, MS, received the 2025 Encoding Health Equity Summit Travel Scholarship for Patients and Emerging Leaders, an opportunity made possible by Doris Duke Foundation and the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS). 

About her experience at the summit, Babatunde shared,

"The Encoding Equity conference was an enriching experience for me. I found it quite inspiring to hear about the diverse initiatives and research projects geared towards achieving health equity. Hearing from biomedical researchers, clinicians, public health providers, guideline developers, and medical societies truly showcased the depth of work in this field.

"My personal takeaway from the conference was on the power of collaboration. Successfully achieving the central goal of health equity integration would require all stakeholders, from providers & researchers to members of the very communities we aim to impact, actively sharing their perspectives. By engaging in consistent mutual learning, we can inspire innovation and translate our findings to actionable change across the entire medical ecosystem.

"As someone in guideline development, I particularly resonated with the work being done on pioneering a 'Population Conscious Analysis' approach to handling race and ethnicity as a variable in biomedical research. This innovation has me very optimistic about the positive impact it will have on new and existing quality appraisal tools being used in evidence synthesis.

"Lastly, I enjoyed engaging in discussions with poster presenters working on projects closely aligned with that of my team. Specifically, those focused on creating a race-conscious framework for for guideline development. These discussions reinforced the significant impact of the work we are engaged in."

Open the doors to opportunity:

Interested in contributing to the future of evidence-based medicine? Become an Evidence Foundation Scholar and attend our upcoming virtual fall workshop (October 29-31, 2025) for free. Application close August 31, 2025. See evidencefoundation.org/scholarships.html 

for application details.

Latest Evidence Foundation Scholar Tackles Project to Create New Quality Assessment Tool for Prevalence Studies

Prevalence studies inform understanding of an individual's baseline risk for a medical or health condition as well as the burden of the disease and the characteristics of a given target population. Meanwhile, estimates of the the absolute risk, taken from prevalence data, informs the development of evidence-based guidelines. But how can one tell if the data on prevalence are trustworthy or seriously biased?

There currently exists no widely agreed-upon tool to assess the risk of bias within studies of prevalence analogous to the Cochrane RoB 2.0 tool for randomized controlled trials or QUADAS-2 for studies of diagnostic test accuracy. Additionally, the assessment of a prevalence study comes with its own challenges, as it requires assessment of population selection, condition treatment, and analysis.

Dr. Ali Choaib, a post-doctoral research fellow in the Evidence-based Practice and Impact Center at the University of Kansas Medical Center, discussed this gap and his proposed project to address it as part of his presentation as the spring 2025 Evidence Foundation scholarship recipient.

At the GRADE Guideline Development Workshop held in Arlington, Virginia, last month, Dr. Choaib presented his work in systematically reviewing and thematically analyzing all existing tools to assess risk of bias in prevalence studies. Choaib and his team identified four major conceptual domains shared across the existing tools: study population, sampling, and setting; case/condition definition and measurement; statistical analysis; and other (e.g., conflicts of interest and missing data).

Next, Choaib's team will work to develop and receive iterative feedback on a new tool that assesses all critical domains while taking care not to include items or questions that are not specifically related to bias, such as those assessing reporting quality.

About his experience of the workshop, Choaib said, 

"The workshop was a perfect opportunity to learn, network, and collaborate with experts. Topics were dynamic and sessions tailored to individuals at all stages of the guideline development process from researchers to admins. I’m honored to have received the scholarship and to have contributed to discussions that expanded my knowledge and understanding of the guideline development process overall and with regards to diagnostic test accuracy specifically."

Choaib has additionally received the Encoding Health Equity Summit 2025 Travel Scholarship Program for Patients and Emerging Leaders. This scholarship, which is made possible with support from the Doris Duke Foundation, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), allowed him to attend the 2025 Encoding Health Equity Summit. This year's theme was "From Evidence to Impact."

"Encoding Health Equity Summit was an eye opening  and career influencing experience. Being a scholar and having the opportunity to contribute to the discussion on a novel and noble approach to health equity at a time when it’s needed. The meeting introduced us to other other investigators, administrators, journal editors, and society leaders broadened my perspective and opening the way for new opportunities and collaboration. This meeting has also connected ideas and work from basic science to implementation. It was inspiring to see so many passionate professionals working to advance equity and improve the future of health."

Interested in contributing to the future of evidence-based medicine? Become an Evidence Foundation Scholar and attend our upcoming virtual fall workshop (October 29-31, 2025) for free. Application close August 31, 2025. See evidencefoundation.org/scholarships.html for application details.

Learn more about Ali's project and other ways to get involved with GRADE at our upcoming free webinar, Monday, November 17th. Register to attend at this link.

USGN Congratulates Fall 2024 Scholar Michelle Hannum

The U.S. GRADE Network, in partnership with the Evidence Foundation, is proud to be able to offer scholarships for deserving applicants to attend our semi-annual GRADE Guideline Development Workshop with a waived registration fee. 

The scholarship allows workshop participants of all disciplines, fields, career stages, and backgrounds to learn about the GRADE framework for assessing certainty of evidence and formulating guideline recommendations. 

The fall 2024 scholarship recipient, Michelle Hannum, was chosen due to her proposed project on "The Promising Future of Evidence-Based Clinical Pathways in Reducing Healthcare Bias," undertaken as part of her work as a Guideline Development Project Manager at the Value Institute at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Health. The role of clinical pathways is to provide the right information (guideline recommendations) to the right people (electronic health record end-users) at the right time (based on patient data) in the right formats and using the right channels. Hannum presented data on pathway utilization at MUSC Health, which demonstrated that Heart Failure pathway utilization was approximately 16-18% and that utilization was equal across patient race/ethnicity and sex among this population. Furthermore, pathway utilization coincided with lower mortality rates, fewer 30-day readmissions and ICU days, and overall lower cost. 

When asked about her experience as a scholar, Hannum stated,

"The workshop does an outstanding job meeting individuals with where they are at in their GRADE journey, whether it be for career roles or personal goals. The information was presented in an engaging manner with plenty of opportunities for discussion and question-answering. The workshop provides an excellent foundation for understanding GRADE and its application."

Interested in being a scholar at the Spring 2025 GRADE Workshop in Washington, DC, May 7-9, 2025? Applications are due January 31. See details at www.evidencefoundation.org/scholarships/html.