Sir Iain Geoffrey Chalmers (born 3 June 1943) is a British health services researcher, one of the founders of the

Cochrane Collaboration Cochrane (previously known as the Cochrane Collaboration) is a British international charitable organisation formed to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health profess ...

,The Cochrane Collaboration
and coordinator of the James Lind Initiative, which includes the James Lind Library and James Lind Alliance.

Education and career

Chalmers qualified in medicine in the mid-1960s, and then practised as a clinician in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and two years (1969-1970) in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

. In the mid-1970s, he became a full-time health services researcher with a particular interest in assessing the effects of care. Between 1978 and 1992, he was the first director of the

National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit The National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU) is a multi-disciplinary research unit within the Nuffield Department of Population Health at Oxford University. It is located in the Richard Doll Building on the Old Road Campus, in Headington, east ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. There, Chalmers led the development of the electronic ''Oxford Database of Perinatal Trials'' (ODPT) and a collection of systematic reviews of randomized trials of care in pregnancy and children published in the two-volume ''Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth'', co-authoring its summary, ''Guide to Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth''. The

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

Research and Development Programme supported extending the approach to other areas of health care. In 1992, Chalmers was appointed director of the UK Cochrane Centre, leading to the development of the international

. Subsequently, he became founding editor of the James Lind Library, which documents the history and evolution of fair trials of treatments, and helped to establish the James Lind Alliance, a non-profit organization that "aims to identify the most important gaps in knowledge about the effects of treatments". The Library has established strategic agreements with international and non-profit organizations to disseminate its publications to a broad international and multilingual audience. Chalmers inspired champions all over the world leading to the development of the Cochrane Collaboration and by 2011 this collaboration had nearly 30,000 volunteers contributing towards summarising research evidence to improve health. His contributions have been instrumental in advancing international policies on research for health -such as PAHO's Policy on Research for Health, and to promote a better understanding of the importance of building bridges between users and producers of research for health policy and health care delivery. Chalmers continues to promote better research for better health care by increasing public appreciation of good research through Testing Treatments interactive and the James Lind Library, and by working with others to reduce waste in research.

Publications

* A Classified Bibliography of Controlled Trials in Perinatal Medicine 1940-1984 * Effectiveness and Satisfaction in Antenatal Care * Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth * Britain's gift: a "Medline" of synthesised evidence * Empirical Evidence of Bias
The evolution of The Cochrane Library, 1988-2003
* The origins, evolution and future of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews * Restore true open access to bmj.com * Systematic Reviews: Reporting, updating, and correcting systematic reviews of the effects of health care

* James Lind Library * Testing Treatments
Testing Treatments Interactive

My Death, My Decision

Iain Chalmers is a Patron of the right to die organization,

My Death, My Decision My Death, My Decision (MDMD) is an organisation that campaigns for the legalisation of assisted dying in England and Wales. The group was founded in 2009, in order to campaign for a change in the law and advocate on behalf of adults of sound ...

. My Death, My Decision wants to see a more compassionate approach to dying in the UK, including giving people the legal right to a medically assisted death if that is their persistent wish.

References

External links

*
James Lind Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chalmers, Iain Living people British medical researchers Knights Bachelor National Health Service people 20th-century English medical doctors 1943 births Cochrane Collaboration people Members of the National Academy of Medicine