E-mail Updates- Home
- Guides for Patients and Consumers
Guides for Patients and Consumers
The Effective Health Care Program produces three primary products:
Research reviews: These comprehensive reports draw on completed scientific studies to make head-to-head comparisons of different health care interventions. They also show where more research is needed.
Original research reports: These reports are based on clinical research and studies that use health care databases and other scientific resources and approaches to explore practical questions about the effectiveness — or benefits and harms — of treatments.
Summary guides: These short, plain-language guides — tailored to clinicians, consumers, or policymakers — summarize research reviews’ findings on the benefits and harms of different treatment options. Consumer guides provide useful background on health conditions. The guides on medications also contain basic wholesale price information.
Our list of guides is always being updated with new research reports and reviews comparing the benefits and harms of test or treatment choices for health conditions. Existing consumer guides that are now available to you are listed below. You can read any of these guides directly on your screen, or click on the printable version to read it on paper. You can also take the printable version with you to your next appointment so that you can talk about your treatment options with your clinician.
- Cancer
- Diabetes
- Mental Health
- Heart and Blood Vessel
- Muscle, Bone, and Joint
- Pregnancy and Childbirth
- Digestive System
Each of the consumer guides also has an accompanying clinician guide. También hay guías para el consumidor disponible en español.
If you do not see the topic you are looking for here, check the list of upcoming consumer guides or submit a suggestion for research to the Effective Health Care Program.
