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Submit a Suggestion for a New Evidence Review

The Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) Program reviews the available evidence on current health care tests, treatments, and methods of health care delivery and describes their advantages or disadvantages. These reviews are based on relevant published and unpublished scientific literature and provide comprehensive, science-based information to consumers, clinicians, and policymakers. Evidence reports can help patients make better decisions about their health care options and can help clinicians and policymakers understand the benefits and harms of different tests and treatments.

Federal agencies can partner with AHRQ through an Interagency Agreement (IAA) to support systematic reviews and technical briefs. To get started or for more information on the process of establishing an IAA with the AHRQ EPC Program, please contact epc@ahrq.gov.

Before you get started

When you submit a suggestion, you are nominating a potential topic for a future evidence report and subsequent translation products produced by the Effective Health Care (EHC) Program. Learn how to suggest a topic and how a suggested topic is chosen, or read topics suggested by others. If you are interested in submitting ideas for primary research funding, please go to Funding Opportunities.

To nominate a new evidence review

Please fill in the form below as completely as possible and click on "submit" at the end. If you prefer, you may fill out the Microsoft Word format (.doc) version of the form and email the completed form to effectivehealthcare@ahrq.hhs.gov, or you may print the completed form and mail it to:

Kara Winchell, M.A.
AHRQ Effective Health Care Program
c/o Portland VA Medical Center (R&D 71)
3710 SW U.S. Veterans Hospital Road
Portland, OR 97239

If you have any supporting documents you would like to include with your nomination, you can include them (if mailing), send them as additional attachments (if emailing), or upload them while submitting the online form.

Your suggested topic as well as responses to the nomination questions (except personal identification information) will be posted for others to view in the Read Suggested Topics for Research.

Topic Suggestion 1. Your Suggestion — Please provide the following information about your topic suggestion. It will be helpful to the Evidence-based Practice Center Program in processing your suggestion.
  • Formulate a question or questions about a health care test or treatment, including any specific tests or treatments that you would like to be compared. For example: For adult patients with a major depressive disorder (MDD), what are the comparative risks and benefits of older versus newer antidepressants?
  • Identify relevant groups or subgroups of patients, including details such as age range, gender, coexisting diagnoses, and reasons for therapy.
  • State the important health-related benefits and harms in which you are interested, such as improvements in symptoms or problems with diagnosis.
Importance of the Suggested Topic 2. Describe why this topic is important. For example: Does the condition affect a large proportion of the population? Does it have an important impact on the health of individuals? Is it unclear what the most beneficial treatments are?
Potential Impact of a New Evidence Report 3. Explain how a new evidence report based on this topic suggestion will be used or will help inform decisions for you or your group.
Potential Stakeholders Who Could Use a New Evidence Report 4. The Effective Health Care (EHC) Program appreciates opportunities to collaborate with other organizations who can use or implement evidence report findings, whether through practice guidelines, decision support, education, or new research. Are there organizations you know that could use an evidence report to change clinical practice? Are you a part of or have you been in contact with any organizations that might implement the research findings of an evidence report? This information is for internal discussion only and will not be displayed on the EHC Program Web site.

Examples of possible organizations

  • American Heart Association
  • American College of Cardiologists
  • Mental Health America
  • Association of American Indian Physicians
  • Depression and Related Affective Disorders Association
  • Gerontological Society of America
Supporting Document
(Select "Browse..." to upload a file. Only *.DOCX, *.DOC, *.XLSX, *.XLS, or *.PDF files can be uploaded. Limit size is 50MBs.)
Information About You 5. To help us understand the context of your topic suggestion, it would be helpful to know more about you. The answers you give will not influence the progress of your suggestion.

Provide a description of your role or perspective (e.g. patient/consumer, physician, professional society, administrator)
(Optional) If you are you making a suggestion on behalf of an organization, please provide the organization's name
(Optional) Please tell us how you heard about the EHC Program
(Optional) Your name and contact information
Your personal information will not be displayed on the EHC Program Web site, nor will it influence your suggestion for a new evidence report by the EHC Program. It will only be used to contact you for additional information about your suggestion, if necessary. It is not mandatory that you provide your contact information, but it is often helpful for us to contact the person who submitted the suggestion, when we need help clarifying a research question.
May we contact you if we have questions about your suggestion?

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