Faculty Bibliography

BACKGROUND/UNASSIGNED:Concerns over scientific reproducibility have grown in recent years, leading the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to require researchers to address these issues in research grant applications. Starting in 2020, training grants were required to provide a plan for educating trainees in rigor and reproducibility. Academic medical centers have responded with different solutions to fill this educational need. As experienced instructors with expertise in topics relating to reproducibility, librarians can play a prominent role in providing trainings, classes, and events to educate investigators and trainees, and bolstering reproducibility in their communities. CASE PRESENTATIONS/UNASSIGNED:This special report summarizes efforts at five institutions to provide education in reproducibility to biomedical and life sciences researchers. Our goal is to expand awareness of the range of approaches in providing reproducibility services in libraries. CONCLUSIONS/UNASSIGNED:Reproducibility education by medical librarians can take many forms. These specific programs in reproducibility education build upon libraries' existing collaborations, with funder mandates providing a major impetus. Collaborator needs shaped the exact type of educational or other reproducibility support and combined with each library's strengths to yield a diversity of offerings based on capacity and interest. As demand for and complexity of reproducibility education increases due to new institutional and funder mandates, reproducibility education will merit special attention.

Background/UNASSIGNED:Over four years of hosting library data workshops, we conducted post-workshop evaluation of attendees' satisfaction with the workshops but not longer-term follow-up. To best allocate library resources and most effectively serve the needs of our users, we sought to determine whether our data workshops were impactful and useful to our community. This paper describes a pilot project to evaluate the impact of data workshops at our academic health sciences library. Case Presentation/UNASSIGNED:We surveyed individuals who signed up for data workshops between 2016 and 2019. Surveys included open-ended and multiple-choice questions, with the goal of having participants describe their motivations for taking the workshop(s) and how they ultimately used what they learned. An analysis of responses using the Applied Thematic Analysis model indicated that the workshops had an impact on the respondents, although the strength of our conclusions is limited by a relatively low response rate. Conclusions/UNASSIGNED:Survey results indicated that our workshops impacted how researchers at our medical center collect and analyze data, supporting the conclusion that we should concentrate our educational efforts on providing skills-based workshops. The low response rate and time-consuming nature of the analysis point toward several improvements for future evaluation efforts, including better tracking of workshop attendees, a shorter survey with fewer open-ended questions, and survey implementation within one year of the workshop date.

OBJECTIVE: The research obtained information to plan data-related products and services. METHODS: Biomedical researchers in an academic medical center were selected using purposive sampling and interviewed using open-ended questions based on a literature review. Interviews were conducted until saturation was achieved. RESULTS: Interview responses informed library planners about researchers' key data issues. CONCLUSIONS: This approach proved valuable for planning data management products and services and raising library visibility among clients in the research data realm.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate evidence from published randomised controlled trials (RCTs) for the use of task-shifting strategies for cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk reduction in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). DESIGN: Systematic review of RCTs that utilised a task-shifting strategy in the management of CVD in LMICs. DATA SOURCES: We searched the following databases for relevant RCTs: PubMed from the 1940s, EMBASE from 1974, Global Health from 1910, Ovid Health Star from 1966, Web of Knowledge from 1900, Scopus from 1823, CINAHL from 1937 and RCTs from ClinicalTrials.gov. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA FOR SELECTING STUDIES: We focused on RCTs published in English, but without publication year. We included RCTs in which the intervention used task shifting (non-physician healthcare workers involved in prescribing of medications, treatment and/or medical testing) and non-physician healthcare providers in the management of CV risk factors and diseases (hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidaemia, stroke, coronary artery disease or heart failure), as well as RCTs that were conducted in LMICs. We excluded studies that are not RCTs. RESULTS: Of the 2771 articles identified, only three met the predefined criteria. All three trials were conducted in practice-based settings among patients with hypertension (2 studies) and diabetes (1 study), with one study also incorporating home visits. The duration of the studies ranged from 3 to 12 months, and the task-shifting strategies included provision of medication prescriptions by nurses, community health workers and pharmacists and telephone follow-up posthospital discharge. Both hypertension studies reported a significant mean blood pressure reduction (2/1 mm Hg and 30/15 mm Hg), and the diabetes trial reported a reduction in the glycated haemoglobin levels of 1.87%. CONCLUSIONS: There is a dearth of evidence on the implementation of task-shifting strategies to reduce the burden of CVD in LMICs. Effective task-shifting interventions targeted at reducing the global CVD epidemic in LMICs are urgently needed.