Understanding Health Research is a  tool for making sense of health studies, created by the Medical Research Council/Chief Scientist Office Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow (MRC/CSO SPHSU) at University of Glasgow.

This tool can help you review a piece of health research by guiding you through a series of questions to ask about it. Once you have answered all the questions, you will receive a summary of your answers to help you read a conclusion about the research. There’s a built in medical dictionary, and an introduction to what how a scientific paper is laid out.

Health is consistently one of the most searched about topics on the internet and an increasing amount of research published open access.

It’s very timely that the public who a) possibly funded the research through their taxes, or  b) contributed to its completion by being patients, or c) might benefit in the future,  have an aid to reading the research (particularly since it rarely includes a plain language summary!)

There’s a nice review in the Guardian.

Other resources that might help are:

• Testing Treatments
• Behind the Headlines, which is also on twitter
• Science Buddies: how to read a scientific paper

The Medical Library have also pulled together lots of critical appraisal resources aimed more at students and health professionals – check it out. We particularly like CASP checklists, and Trisha Greenhalgh’s books – in the library, or online.