UICC and Cochrane – Developing a Partnership for Global Cancer Control

This collaboration is timely, as building the political will to implement improvements in cancer control is possibly the greatest challenge in the global fight against cancer. It requires organisations to work together to enable effective, impartial, and evidence-based advocacy across governments, with donors and the international health sphere. 

Marshalling the evidence to support these efforts poses a significant challenge. The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers found that in March 2015, 34,500 peer-reviewed scientific, technological and medical research journals existed, publishing around 2.5 million articles annually. These resources are scattered across a multitude of library archives and online databases. Fortunately the rapid growth of information technology and of the Internet has helped the retrieval of this evidence and the development of systematic reviews and meta-analyses that extract meaning from this mountain of literature.

Building on Cochrane’s significant experience reviewing interventions across the cancer control spectrum and UICC’s membership, the two organisations have come together to strengthen international cancer control advocacy. Discussions are currently underway to determine the methodology to combine and strengthen UICC’s advocacy efforts with the evidence from Cochrane Reviews and expertise. The result will enable UICC member organisations to draw on an even greater wealth of global experience and insight to support the implementation of national policies and cancer control programmes and services in line with the commitments to non-communicable disease reduction targets by 2025, and the 2030 agenda of the new Sustainable Development Goals.

UICC looks forward to working alongside Cochrane to promote their resources and enable UICC members to share data with Cochrane and help identify priority areas for new reviews in the cancer control field.

About UICC

UICC is the largest cancer-fighting organisation of its kind, with over 900 member organisations across 155 countries representing the world's major cancer societies, ministries of health, research institutes, treatment centres and patient groups.

The organisation is dedicated to taking the lead in convening, capacity building and advocacy initiatives that unite the cancer community to reduce the global cancer burden, promote greater equity, and integrate cancer control into the world health and development agenda.

About Cochrane

During the past 20 years, Cochrane has helped to transform the way health decisions are made. It produces reviews that summarise the best available evidence generated through research to inform decisions about health. Cochrane is a global independent network of more than 30,000 researchers, professionals, patients, carers, and people interested in health. Moreover, Cochrane’s work is recognised as representing an international gold standard for high quality and trusted information. Cochrane wants to be the leading advocate for evidence-informed health across the world.

For more information about Cochrane, please visit www.cochranelibrary.com

For more information about this partnership please contact us directly at advocacy@uicc.org.