Key facts

Overview

Translating evidence into recommendations for action: the role of judgement in the appraisal of evidence in medicine and public health.

Professor Mike Kelly. Director of the Centre for Public Health Excellence, NICE.

Wednesday 18th July 2012, 7pm: Rewley House

This presentation will examine the role that judgement plays in the interpretation of evidence. Drawing on the experience of leading the development of public health guidance at NICE, a distinction will be drawn between interpretations of the evidence which are based on well-defined protocols such as statistical testing or evidence hierarchies and judgements which are used to assess and interpret evidence. Originally NICE developed its Social Values Judgements paper to help guide its committees in the areas where considerations beyond the evidence came into play such as ethical or moral issues. However, it will be argued that there is another level of more subtle judgements which are important, though usually not recognised, which relate to rationalist principles. Using the philosophical distinction between rationalism and empiricism as outlined by David Hume and the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgements made by Immanuel Kant, this layer of judgements will be examined. The usefulness of the application of these philosophical frameworks for contemporary evidence based medicine will be considered.

This is one of two lectures offered as part of a new accredited short course History and Philosophy of Evidence-Based Health Care that are also open to the general public. The second lecture Why Brains Can’t Think: Exposing the Mereological Fallacy by Professor Rom Harré is taking place on Monday 16th July at 7pm. Both lectures are free to attend, but booking is required.

Staff

Prof Mike Kelly

Role: Speaker

Professor Mike Kelly is Director of the Centre of Public Health Excellence at National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) where...more he leads on the development of public health guidance. He is a public health practitioner, researcher and academic.

He originally graduated in Social Science from the University of York, holds a Masters degree in Sociology from the University of Leicester, and undertook his PhD in the Department of Psychiatry in the University of Dundee. Before joining NICE he was Director of Evidence and Guidance at the Health Development Agency. Professor Kelly has previously held academic posts at the Universities of Leicester, Dundee, Glasgow, Greenwich and Abertay. He is Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow in the General Practice and Primary Care Research Unit, Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, Honorary Professor in the Department of Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Honorary Professor in Community Based Medicine, in the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, the University of Manchester, Visiting Professor in the School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Honorary Professor of Public Health, University of Salfordand Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of Public Health, Primary Care and Food Policy in the School of Community and Health Sciences, City University, London. He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

He has published more than two hundred papers in medical, social scientific and public health journals and is author/ editor of seven books. In 2010 he was awarded the Alwyn Smith Prize of the Faculty of Public Health for his work on cardiovascular disease and alcohol misuse prevention.

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Programmes including this module

This module can be studied as part of these programmes:

• Medical and health sciences
• Short courses in health sciences