Consolidating international evidence: Why justice health can benefit from the Cochrane Collaboration

The preponderance of evidence portrays adults and adolescents under the control of the criminal and juvenile justice systems as disproportionately shouldering public health risks. Despite this, there remains a dearth of coherent policy specifically designed to address the health needs of this population. The lack of rational policy and evidence-based guidelines in the US may be viewed in part as the failure of the scientific community to rigorously organize the knowledge base on health prevalence, interventions and outcomes, and to disseminate findings in a manner conducive to guideline development that will resonate with care providers. It has been left to the courts to carve out standards in this realm. The Cochrane Justice Health Field was registered as one antidote to this policy vacuum, with primary activities including merging international networks, organizing and automating knowledge in the area, and prioritizing clinical questions. The Cochrane Collaboration -- a global network of nearly 30,000 leading researchers in 113 countries -- relies on systematic reviews ensure an exhaustive and comprehensive coverage of health interventions and outcomes, and provides a readymade network and framework for organizing knowledge and for answering key questions of intervention effectiveness for justice-involved persons.