Partners -> Latin American Partners

Latin American Partners

Centro Rosarino de Estudios Perinatales, Rosario, Argentina (www.crep.com.ar)

Rosarinian Center for Perinatal Studies

Coordinator for Latin America

Qualifications and capacity
The Centre’s remit is to improve mother and infant
health through research, training and contributing to healthcare policymaking. The Centre is a WHO Collaborative Centre in Mother-Child Health and Population and has expertise in the design and conduct of large multi-centre randomized controlled trials. It has established a 34-hospital national research network and a Latin American network.

Experience and knowledge in the Centre
Expertise in systematic reviews and a record of initiating trials when reviews are inconclusive. Trial results are disseminated to health providers and policymakers at locally and nationally, promoting implementation of effective interventions and the discontinuation of ineffective ones. The Centre has a close relationship with local and national health authorities and collaborates in planning healthcare strategy.

Key personnel
Edgardo Abalos	Dr Abalos has extensive experience of systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials of interventions to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality and has co-ordinated large multi-centre, multinational trials in Argentina and Latin America. He is reviewer in the Pregnancy and Childbirth Review Group of the Cochrane Collaboration, has been a partner in two EC projects and will contribute to all WPs. You can access to Edgardo Abalos ´ CV
Other key members
Guillermo Carroli
Luciano Mignini
Juan Manuel Nardin
Yanina Sguassero
Policy links
Dr Monica Fein	Head of the Department of Public Health of the Municipality of Rosario
Dr Celia Lomuto	From the Mother and Child Program of the National Ministry of Health
Three external international experts will be attached to this Partner
Curt Furberg	Has three decades of hands-on experience in conducting clinical trials and is a co-author of the leading text in clinical trial methodology. He is a strong advocate for evidence-based practice and is actively pursuing issues of drug safety and pricing.
John Lavis	Is a health policy researcher who works closely with researchers and public policymakers to enhance the role of research in health systems. He wrote the report that underpins the chapter on "linking research to action" in the World Report on Knowledge for Better Health and he is supporting WHO efforts to respond to the World Health Assembly resolution to "establish or strengthen mechanisms to transfer knowledge in support of evidence-based public health and health-care delivery systems, and evidencebased health-related policies”.
Dave Sackett	Founded Canada's first department of clinical epidemiology at McMaster University in 1967. He has made significant contributions to how we assess the effectiveness of healthcare. His textbook, Clinical Epidemiology: A Basic Science for Clinical Medicine has gone through several editions and is a classic in the field.

Instituto de Efectividad Clinica y Sanitaria, Buenos Aires, Argentina (www.iecs.org.ar)

Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy

Qualifications and capacity
IECS is devoted to research, education and technical support with the goal of improving efficiency, equity, and quality of health care systems and policies. It has strong links with national and regional health authorities. IECS hosts the Argentine Cochrane Center, is a Clinical Epidemiology Research and Training Center from LatinCLEN (INCLEN TRUST) and collaborates with NEVALAT (Latin American Health Economic Evaluation Network). IECS hosts an MSc program from the University of Buenos Aires with the participation of faculty from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Pan-American Health Organization.
Within IECS, the Department of Maternal and Child Health Research is devoted to contribute through research and research training to improve global health of women and children.

Experience and knowledge in the Institute
Extensive experience in conducting trials in maternal and perinatal areas in developing countries and has made contributions to improve trial methods and to develop trial tools. The research team has conducted eight international, multi-center randomized controlled trials in more than 70 hospitals in eight Latin American countries. More than 200,000 women have been included in these studies.

Key personnel
Fernando Althabe	Epidemiologist his main area of activity is the design, conduct and analysis of large randomized trials in maternal and child health in LMIC. He is a member of IECS, faculty at the School of Public Health, University of Buenos Aires, and honorary adjunct assistant professor at the Dept of Epidemiology, School of Public Health at Tulane
Eduardo Bergel
Other key members
Luz Gibbons
Agustin Ciapponi
Sebastian García Martí

Escuela de salud Pública, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile (www.med.uchile.cl)

School of Public Health. University of Chile

Qualifications and capacity
The School, established in 1943, is the oldest academic unit in Chile doing research and teaching in public health. It has acted as a national and regional resource for the training of health professionals and has a tradition of co-operation with the health authorities in the design and monitoring of public policies.

Experience and knowledge at the School
The School has acted as principal investigator, or co-investigator, in several projects with the Chilean government and foreign governmental and non-governmental agencies, such as the Panamerican Health Organisation, the Kellogg Foundation and the European Union, among others. The staff working at the School is integrated in four different divisions, and amounts to 56 lecturers and fellow researchers.

Key personnel
Rodrigo Salinas	Physician, neurologist, trained in systematic reviews at the department of Neurological Sciences of the University of Edinburgh, Master of Science in Evidence Based Health Care, University of Oxford, and Master of Science in Health Economics, University of York. He is former Director of the Chilean Institute of Public Health and acted as deputy Undersecretary of Health 1998 - 2000. He is member of the editorial board of the Infectious and Neuromuscular Cochrane Diseases Review Groups.
Policy link
Rodrigo Salinas	Dr Salinas is currently a member of the Bioethics and Evidence Based Medicine Unit at the Ministry of Health

Unidad de Epidemiología Clínica y Bioestadística, Universidad Javariana, Bogota, Colombia (www.javeriana.edu.co)

Clincial Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit, Javariana University

Qualifications and capacity
The Unit conducts a range of clinical epidemiological research, including randomised trials. It is a resource site and training centre in the International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN) and was a partner in the PRACTIHC collaboration. It also plays a key role in the activities of Colombians as members of the Cochrane Collaboration.

Experience and knowledge in the Unit
The Unit has extensive experience of doing systematic reviews, assessing the contribution of research to policy-making and of running pragmatic randomised controlled trials in Latin America.

Key personnel

Juan Manuel Lozano

Dr. Lozano has experience of systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials of interventions to reduce childhood morbidity and mortality and has co-ordinated large multicentre in neonatal care in Colombia. He is reviewer and editor in the Acute Respiratory Infections Review Group of the Cochrane Collaboration, has been a partner in one EC project (PRACTIHC) and will contribute to systematic reviews, especially those concerning child health