The Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) was established in 1999 by Dr. Helen Thomas and Dr. Donna Ciliska of McMaster University’s School of Nursing. Their team of researchers produced systematic reviews and other high-quality evidence products for public health practitioners and decision makers. EPHPP has also been involved in the production of numerous resources focused on research methods and tools involved in synthesizing and appraising research evidence.

In 2010, the EPHPP and McMaster Evidence-Based Practice Centre combined their vast expertise in the conducting of systematic reviews to the establishment of the McMaster Evidence Review and Synthesis Team (MERST). The team worked as the evidence centre that supported the work of the Canadian Task Force for Preventive Healthcare providing evidence reviews which informed the clinical practice guidelines for primary care in Canada.

Thomas, B.H., Ciliska, D., Dobbins, M., & Micucci, S. A process for systematically reviewing the literature: Providing the research evidence for public health nursing interventions. Worldviews on Evid Based Nurs. 2004; 1(3):176-184. PMID: 17163895

Armijo-Olivo, S., Stiles, C.R., Hagen, N.A., Biondo, P.D., & Cummings, G.G. Assessment of study quality for systematic reviews: a comparison of the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias Tool and the Effective Public Health Practice Project Quality Assessment tool: methodological research. J Eval Clin Pract, 2012;18(1):12-8. PMID: 20698919