Essential components for reporting in guidelines, health technology assessments, essential medicines lists, and evidence briefs for policy

Guidelines, health technology assessment reports, applications for listing on the essential medicines list, and evidence briefs for policy are collectively known as evidence products and are designed to support decision-making on health interventions. They have many similar elements, such as providing analysis of the balance between benefits (efficacy, effectiveness) and harms (safety, adverse effects), using systematic reviews as a source of evidence, and using a PICO (population, intervention[s], comparator[s], outcomes[s]) (or similar) framework to structure questions about interventions. In addition, they have processes in place to include input from interested holders, assess and manage conflicts of interest, and ensure transparency. Thus, synergies could be achieved by standardizing essential reporting components across product types.

This publication includes a list of 26 essential components to guide reporting on guidelines, health technology assessments, applications to the essential medicines list, and evidence briefs for policy. The intended audience of this guidance are staff of the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization and their Member States, collaborating centers, and other partner organizations that commission, produce, or review reports of evidence products. 

The list can be utilized when developing new or updating existing templates for each evidence product. It will be useful for countries (and other users) to improve the quality and completeness of their evidence product reports. It may also help them improve efficiency in their production, use, and adaptation by enabling the reuse of information (with updates or adaptations where relevant). The list is designed to complement existing methodological and reporting guidance documents for each evidence product, which provide more specific information on best practices for their production.