Vivian Welch
Editor-in-Chief, Campbell
Dr. Vivian Welch is editor in chief of the Campbell Collaboration, Director of the Methods Centre at the Bruyère Research Institute (BRI), and Associate Professor at University of Ottawa School of Epidemiology and Public Health. She co-convenes the Campbell and Cochrane Equity Methods Group and is a co-director of Cochrane-Campbell Global Ageing. She obtained her PhD in Population health and epidemiology from the University of Ottawa in 2010. Dr. Welch’s research interests include methods for reporting and conducting systematic reviews relevant to ageing and health equity. She has led international teams in the development of reporting guidelines for how to assess health equity in systematic reviews (PRISMA-Equity 2012), randomized controlled trials (CONSORT-Equity 2017) and public health guidelines. She has led and contributed to over 30 systematic reviews on global health. She led a new chapter on assessing health equity in the revised Cochrane Handbook, published in 2019.
She was awarded a recognition as one of the top 100 women in Global Health 2018, The Lancet and Canadian Society for International Health and an Ontario Early Researcher Award (2014-2019)
Vivian spoke at 'Virtually Cochrane', a virtual event we co-hosted with Cochrane Ireland in April 2021. Watch the recording Health equity in systematic reviews
Selected publications
1. Dewidar O, Tsang P, León-García M, Mathew C, Antequera A, Baldeh T, Akl EA, Alonso-Coello P, Petkovic J, Piggott T, Pottie K, Schünemann H, Tugwell P, Welch V. Over half of the WHO guidelines published from 2014 to 2019 explicitly considered health equity issues: A cross sectional survey. J Clin Epidemiol. 2020 Jul 24:S0895-4356(20)30472-8.
2. Glover RE, van Schalkwyk MC, Akl EA, Kristjannson E, Lotfi T, Petkovic J, Petticrew MP, Pottie K, Tugwell P, Welch V. A framework for identifying and mitigating the equity harms of COVID-19 policy interventions. J Clin Epidemiol. 2020 Jun 8:S0895-4356(20)30597-7.
3. Welch V, Howe TE, Marcus S, Mathew CM, Sadana R, Rogers M, et al. PROTOCOL: Health, social care and technological interventions to improve functional ability of older adults: Evidence and gap map. Campbell Syst Rev 2019;15(4).
4. Welch VA, Ghogomu E, Hossain A, Riddle A, Gaffey M, Arora P, et al. Mass deworming for improving health and cognition of children in endemic helminth areas: A systematic review and individual participant data network meta-analysis. Campbell Syst Rev 2019;15(4).
5. Welch V, Doull M, Yoganathan M, Jull J, Boscoe M, Coen SE, Marshall Z, Pardo JP, Pederson A, Petkovic J, Puil L, Quinlan L, Shea B, Rader T, Runnels V, Tudiver S. Reporting of sex and gender in randomized controlled trials in Canada: a cross-sectional methods study. Res Integr Peer Rev. 2017 Sep 1;2:15. doi: 10.1186/s41073-017-0039-6. eCollection 2017.
6. Welch V, Norheim O, Jull J, Cookson R, Sommerfelt H, Tugwell P et al. CONSORT-Equity 2017 extension and elaboration for better reporting of health equity in randomised trials. BMJ 2017; 359: j5085.
7. Welch VA, Akl EA, Guyatt G, Pottie K, Eslava-Schmalbach J, Ansari MT, de Beer H, Briel M, Dans T, Dans I, Hultcrantz M, Jull J, Katikireddi SV, Meerpohl J, Morton R, Mosdol A, Petkovic J, Schünemann H, Sharaf R, Singh J, Stanev R, Tonia T, Tristan M, Vitols S, Watine J, Tugwell P. GRADE Equity guidelines 1: Health equity in guideline development- introduction and rationale. J Clin Epidemiol. 2017 Apr 12. pii: S0895-4356(17)30339-6
8. Welch V, Petticrew M, Petkovic J, Moher D, Waters E, White H, Tugwell P and the PRISMA-Equity Bellagio group. Extending the PRISMA Statement to Equity-Focused Systematic Reviews (PRISMA-E 2012): Explanation and elaboration. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 2016 Feb;70:68-89.