Consumers United for Evidence-based Healthcare

Consumers United for Evidence-based Healthcare (CUE) is a coalition of consumer groups interested in evidence-based healthcare. It was formed in 2003, when the United States Cochrane Center invited advocacy groups to join a consumer advocate-scientist partnership, in an effort to improve consumers’ ability to engage in and demand high quality healthcare.

Mission

The mission of CUE is to promote the health of populations and the quality of individual health care by empowering consumers, public health policy makers, and health care providers to make informed decisions based on the best current evidence through research, education, and advocacy. A vision statement of CUE is that “All consumers, policy makers, and providers will use evidence in making health decisions.”

CUE provides leadership to other efforts aimed at involving patients in the research process, strengthening the voice of consumers in healthcare research, which has been called for over two decades but which has not always been successfully implemented free of commercial influence. By creating opportunities for networking and learning, similar to those available to health professionals, CUE members can be empowered and have an ongoing source of information and tools about health issues of concern. This would, at least in theory, give the member groups an edge in advocacy activities.

Since its establishment, CUE members have been asked to testify to national committees, have contributed letters to the biomedical literature, sit on national professional society steering groups and advisory panels in addition many other contributions.

Goals

Specific goals of CUE include:

1. Establishing universal access to evidence-based healthcare information that is produced in a format and language useful to consumers
2. Disseminating the tools to utilize that information include a means by which consumers can analyze evidence in order to evaluate the harms and benefits of specific healthcare interventions
3. Demanding research to fill existing gaps with the recognition that the research should be relevant to minority and vulnerable populations
4. Ensuring the validity and integrity of research by consumers involvement in framing research questions and reviewing research protocols
5. Insisting the way research is conducted and reported promotes the public (as opposed to commercial) interests

CUE Member Organizations

As a condition of membership. CUE members may not receive the majority of the funding from commercial sources and agree to attend an annual CUE meeting to set priorities, receive training, and collaborate with consumer and health advocates throughout the United States. CUE membership is currently about 40 member groups; the earliest members include the National Breast Cancer Coalition, Consumer Reports, and the Black Women’s Health Imperative, among others.

• Annie Appleseed Project
• Association for Pelvic Organ Prolapse Support
• Autism Society of Colorado
• Black Women’s Health Alliance
• Black Women’s Health Imperative
• California Breast Cancer Organizations (CABCO)
• Center for Medical Consumers
• Center for Science in the Public Interest
• Cherab Foundation
• Childbirth Connection Programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families
• Children With Diabetes Foundation
• Citizens for Patient Safety
• Consumer Reports
• Faces and Voices of Recovery
• Families USA
• Homebirth Summit Consumer Engagement Task Force
• Lamaze International
• LymeDisease.org
• Mothers Against Medical Error
• National Alliance for Caregiving
• National Breast Cancer Coalition
• National Center for Health Research
• National Center for Transgender Equality
• National Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health
• National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
• National Consumers League
• National Council on Aging
• National Environment Education Foundation
• National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse
• National Partnership for Women & Families
• National Vaccine Information Center
• National Women’s Health Network
• Our Bodies Ourselves
• Ovarian Cancer Advocacy Alliance of San Diego
• Rhode Island Breast Cancer Coalition
• SafeMinds
• TMJ Association, LTD
• Young Survival Coalition

Conferences and Training

CUE has hosted two Summit conferences, in 2007 and 2010, attended by advocacy groups and others. CUE also holds one membership meeting each year, in Washington, DC, with communication via mail and e-mail between meetings and makes its slidecasts from the meeting available to the public.

All of CUE’s training materials are available free of charge to the public, for example, training about critical appraisal & evidence-based healthcare. CUE also hosts social networking through Facebook groups and Twitter, and CUE contributes its views and support to international projects such as AllTrials. The USCC hosts CUE’s website and resource offerings and coordinates its program of matching educated consumers with researchers and policy makers who wish to incorporate consumers into their programs, for example guidelines developers.

See also

• Decision-making
• Evidence-based medicine
• Policy-based evidence making

External links

• US Cochrane Center Online Learning
• Consumers United for Evidence-based Healthcare Facebook Group
• CUE Cochrane USA Twitter

References

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