Case Study: Commissioned Review for Environmental Health Agency

SUMMARY

Metaphase Health Research Consulting Inc. sources and reviews scientific literature, evaluates the information and concisely summarizes it for the client and/or for the public.

CLIENT SITUATION

The National Collaborating Centre For Environmental Health commissioned Metaphase to conduct a literature review entitled Health Effects of Mould in Indoor Environments for an audience of Public Health Inspectors and Environmental Health Officers.

METAPHASE ROLE AND PROCESS

Metaphase met with the client to discuss what the final product would look like, set timelines and outlined the process. We sourced key articles through PubMed searches and identified additional articles during the literature review. After determining the key issues, Metaphase constructed an outline for client approval.

Once the outline was approved, Metaphase reviewed the literature, evaluated the strength of the evidence and wrote a report summarizing the scientific evidence in this area. Metaphase contacted subject area experts, as well as potential users (Environmental Health Officers and Public Health Inspectors) to review the report and to provide feedback.

A knowledge translation document was prepared which summarized the key findings, and is available on the NCCEH website.

KEY PROJECT CHALLENGES

Indoor mould is a contentious area featuring a lot of conflicting data. Metaphase conducted a thorough literature review and carefully evaluated the evidence to ensure that the correct information was presented in an unbiased manner. Evidence-based recommendations were provided for dissemination to the client.

OUTCOME

The client obtained a clear, scientifically accurate and concise summary of the current literature. Feedback received about the article has been extremely positive, and this knowledge translation article is the most frequently downloaded article on the NCCEH website. As a result of this work, the NCCEH commissioned Metaphase to prepare two additional literature summaries - Mould Assessment and Mould Remediation - to be published shortly.