This course will help students understand the role of evidence synthesis in health services, systems and policy research, and provide them with knowledge and skills to conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Students will learn how to formulate a research question for a systematic review, develop a review protocol, conduct a comprehensive search of relevant literature, evaluate the level of evidence and the quality of studies, extract information, synthesize the evidence (using appropriate statistical methods for meta-analysis), and report the findings. Students will also learn principles related to other approaches of evidence synthesis (e.g., critical interpretive synthesis, realist review, meta-narrative review, scoping reviews, rapid reviews, overview of reviews). As part of the course, students will develop and register a systematic review protocol and conduct the systematic review potentially followed by a meta-analysis. This course will provide an overview of the current status of program planning and evaluation. Its purpose is to give participants an understanding of the planning and evaluation process, to familiarize them with current program.

Objectives: 1) Understand the role of evidence synthesis and the different approaches to systematic review for health services, systems and policy research. 2) Become familiar with the basic concepts of traditional systematic reviews and meta-analyses for different research designs. 3) Appreciate the limitations and challenges of applying evidence synthesis methods in practice by conducting a systematic review/meta-analysis. 4) Acquire theoretical and practical skills to conduct systematic review and meta-analysis.