Tag Archives: research

Join our updated workshop on medical studies at #ahcj19 — covering the basics plus policy and, yes, biostats-made-easy

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Tara Haelle

About Tara Haelle

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

If you are joining us for Health Journalism 2019 in Baltimore in a few weeks, be sure to arrive in time to attend the Thursday morning workshop on reporting on medical studies.

For those not attending any field trips, you have the opportunity to come and hear from two new speakers this year who will expand our discussion of medical research coverage to cost effectiveness, policy and patient-centered outcomes studies, plus some extra diving into understanding those intimidating biostats in studies! Continue reading →

Be cautious, skeptical with comprehensive reviews of evidence

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Tara Haelle

About Tara Haelle

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

Photo: nekrum via Flickr

I recently was assessing a lengthy review of the evidence on environmental exposures and breast cancer risk, and as I read, red flags started popping up. While I may not know the evidence base in this area extremely well, I knew it well enough to recognize that the authors were making statements I was pretty sure were not supported by the evidence — or at least not to the extent the review suggested. Continue reading →

Get ready to cover the coming tide of clinical research preprints

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Tara Haelle

About Tara Haelle

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

The bread and butter of medical research reporting traditionally has been coverage of peer-reviewed studies. However, some new kids are threatening to elbow their way into the conversation and reporters should be prepared.

Preprints aren’t exactly new to scientific research in general, but are a recent phenomenon within biological research and rapidly growing, according to graphs at PrePubMed, a preprint aggregator and indexer similar to but unaffiliated with PubMed. Preprints also are making their way into medical/clinical research. Continue reading →

Journalists can learn from these ‘9.5 Theses for a Reformation of Evidence-Based Medicine’

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Tara Haelle

About Tara Haelle

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

At the American Academy of Pediatrics annual meeting last fall, I attended a talk by Kevin Powell, M.D., Ph.D., called “Evidence-Based Medicine in a World of Post-Truth and Alternative Facts.”

Despite the title’s allusions, however, the talk did not discuss problems in communicating science or medical findings in today’s media ecosystem. Rather, Powell argued that many of the problems we see in today’s problematic reporting and “fake news” have long existed in medical research — but there are ways to address those problems. Continue reading →

Plan ahead to get answers at a medical conference

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Tara Haelle

About Tara Haelle

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

Photo: Matt Hintsa via Flickr

One challenge when covering medical conferences is that, depending on your publication’s needs, you often must conduct many interviews on the fly both with presenters and with attendees at the sessions.

Since many other people also are vying for the presenters’ attention, you might only be able to get in a few short questions after a session. Continue reading →

Don’t neglect the human stories — and human pain — behind clinical trials

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Tara Haelle

About Tara Haelle

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

Most often, reporting on medical studies means recounting numbers, demographic details, findings and statistical probability values that are so abstract that it’s easy to forget they all refer to actual people enrolled in the study. With epidemiological studies, the researchers themselves often never meet the people they report on, especially if it’s a retrospective study that primarily relies on electronic medical records.

But clinical trials are a different story. Continue reading →