A Multilingual, Relational
Database of Health Evidence
Gabriel Rada, Daniel Capurro, Daniel Perez
Epistemonikos foundation
Episte…what?
EPISTEMONIKOS
(ΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΟΝΙΚΟΣ )
What is worth knowing
Who we are
Epistemonikos is a nonprofit organization based in Santiago, Chile
Our mission is “to bring high quality information closer to health decision
making”
The problem: information overload
New oral anticoagulants in atrial fibrillation
("Atrial Fibrillation"[Mesh] OR "Atrial
Flutter"[Mesh] OR ((atrial OR auricular) AND
(fibrillation* OR flutter*)) OR AF[Text Word])
AND ("Factor Xa/antagonists AND
inhibitors"[Mesh] OR ((factor xa OR factors 10a
OR fXa OR autoprothrombin c OR
thrombokinase) AND inhibit[Text Word]) OR
(activated AND (factor x OR factors 10) AND
inhibitor*) OR xabans[Text Word] OR (antistasin
OR apixaban OR betrixaban OR du 176b OR
eribaxaban OR fondaparinux OR idraparinux OR
otamixaban OR razaxaban OR rivaroxaban OR
aygin OR ym 150 OR ym150 OR LY517717 OR
darexaban OR edoxaban OR SSR126517E) OR
((dabigatran OR BIBR1048) OR ximelagatran OR
AZD0837))
The problem is you dont
know the secrets of
PubMed
Oooops…
..but you can search
“systematic reviews” [best
evidence]
Much better, ah?
Yoy can start reading
…see ya!
8 systematic reviews for
my question
Wake up!!!
You have to read them, compare which
studies they include
….and beg they are well conducted, say
the same thing and address the same
studies.
Out of bed, sleepyhead!!!
The challenge: to separate the wheat
from the chaff
23,000,000 records
only in PubMed
• 0,25% are
systematic reviews
Our goal
TO AGGREGATE ALL THE RELEVANT HEALTH EVIDENCE (FOR
DECISION-MAKING) INTO A SINGLE DATABASE.
www.epistemonikos.org
•Free
•Released 1 year ago
•Multilingual interface
•Multilingual search
•Translations of abstracts
What evidence?
Systematic reviews
Overviews of reviews
High-quality structured summaries
Primary studies included in systematic reviews
Systematic
reviews (SR) at
the centre
• The average SR takes
about 1-year of work
• We rescue that effort
by storing identified
studies
From: http://www.navigatingeffectivetreatments.org.au/understanding_systematic_reviews.html
The Centre for Health Communication and Participation with support from the Australasian Cochrane Centre
All that effort into
a single database
Unpublished!!!
If the reviewers found it, we’ve got it
Where do we search?
 19 databases
How do we feed Epistemonikos?
• Combination of machine technology and
human collaboration
1
Automatic search and upload
2
3
Extraction of the studies included in the
systematic review
Selection of actual systematic reviews
by a network of collaborators
ADDED VALUE
Not just records
RELATIONS
ADDITIONAL
DATA
(metadata)
TRANSLATIONS
VISUALIZATION
RECORDS
(Studies,
reviews,
overviews)
Relations are
stored in the
database
New anticoagulants for atrial fibrillation
The numbers
• 158,211 records
• 30,651 systematic reviews
– The world’s biggest collection of certified
systematic reviews
• 109,889 primary studies
• +200 collaborators
How Epistemonikos compares to existing
resources?
Not just records
ADDED VALUE
Other 16 databases
RELATIONS
ADDITIONAL
DATA
(metadata)
TRANSLATIONS
VISUALIZATION
Dare
Cochrane
Epistemonikos
Pubmed
Let’ see an example
New oral anticoagulants in atrial fibrillation
All the evidence (systematic reviews and studies) for our question
*The matrix of evidence is expected to be released at the end of this year
Conclusions
•
•
•
•
One-stop shop for evidence
Multilingual database
User friendly
Relation between articles answering a similar
question
• Visualisation of ‘all the evidence’ for a specific
question
Many thanks!!
Contact us:
contact@epistemonikos.org
radagabriel@epistemonikos.org
…or follow us in your preferred language:
English: @epistemonikos
Spanish: @epistemonikosEs
German: @epistemonikosDe
French: @epistemonikosFr
….also in Facebook and google+
Portuguese: @epistemonikosPt
Italian: @epistemonikosIt
Arabic: @epistemonikosAr
Dutch: @epistemonikosNl
Chinese: @epistemonikosZh