The WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, in collaboration with the Norwegian Knowledge Center for the Health Services, conducted a workshop on developing SUPPORT summaries at the Regional Office, Cairo, Egypt, from 15 to 18 November, 2015.

The objective of the workshop was to train participants to prepare user-friendly summaries of systematic reviews of health system evidence for policy-makers and stakeholders in low and middle-income countries (SUPPORT Summaries), using a hands-on interactive approach.

During the workshop; 9 SUPPORT summaries were developed by the participants, with the aim of assisting national health authorities of Member States in translating evidence into action in germane areas such as:

• What are the effects of interventions to reduce waiting times for elective procedures?
• Can community-based interventions increase uptake of treatment modalities for diarrhoea and pneumonia and reduce childhood mortality?
• Do community-based intervention packages contribute to reducing maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality?
• What are the effects of physician-nurse substitution in primary care on clinical parameters?
• Do home or community-based programmes work better than facility-based care for treating malaria?
• What is the impact of women’s groups practising participatory learning and action on maternal and newborn health outcomes in low and middle-income countries?
• What is the impact of policies for managing the movement of health workers between public and private organizations?
• Is nutrition training of health workers effective in improving caregivers’ feeding practices for children aged 6 months to 2 years?
• Do workplace programmes for the diagnosis and treatment of HIV or tuberculosis improve workers’ health outcomes and attitudes?

Participants expressed satisfaction of the training they received during the workshop, and the supportive role of facilitators in this respect. The department is planning to repeat such workshops for other groups of researchers in the Region, whether on regional or country level, to assist in building national capacities in developing systematic reviews (and their summaries) of health system evidence for policy-makers and stakeholders.

The workshop was attended by 11 researchers with pertinent experience on conducting systematic reviews. The faculty of the workshop included four external facilitators, namely: Dr Andy Oxman (from the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services, Norway); Drs Tomas Pantoja and Cristian  Herrera (from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile), Dr Agustin Ciapponi (from the Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy, Argentina), in addition to Dr Arash Rashidian (Director, Regional Office).