Introduction:

Wikipedia is a powerful platform for sharing scientific and health information with the public  and contains over 40,000 health-related articles. Medical Wikipedia articles receive approximately 10 million visits per day from around the world, and health articles in the English Language alone received over 2.2 billion views in 2017. The Cochrane-Wikipedia partnership was developed in 2014. The goal of this partnership is to share Cochrane evidence on Wikipedia, using Cochrane Reviews to ensure health-related content within Wikipedia articles is accurate and unbiased.

Progress:

Presently, there are over 2000 uses of Cochrane Reviews in English Wikipedia. Many Cochrane Review Groups and Cochrane Centres are training Wikipedia editors and developing new methods and knowledge translation strategies to share high-quality evidence on Wikipedia. There are over 5000 Cochrane Reviews that are not yet used as evidence in Wikipedia articles. More skilled editors are needed to contribute to health-related articles on Wikipedia. It is our goal to normalise Wikipedia editing in the medical and scientific community. New Cochrane-Wikipedia editors are being actively recruited through initiatives such as Cochrane’s TaskExchange, social media, educational initiatives, and directly through the Cochrane Groups.  At present, encouraging healthcare professionals to volunteer regularly on Wikipedia is a challenge.

This Special Session will outline strategies that members of the Cochrane Community have taken to get involved and share evidence on Wikipedia. Initiatives such as Cochrane-Wikipedia edit-a-thons, incorporating Wikipedia editing into medical and dental teaching curricula, and the use of technology to share Cochrane evidence efficiently on Wikipedia will be presented by various Cochrane community members. The presentations will be followed by a general discussion to further debate current strategies for engagement with Wikipedia as well as consider any additional approaches that could be used to strengthen the representation of Cochrane evidence in Wikipedia. 

Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:

Research indicates that Wikipedia is one of the most read sources of healthcare information in the world. In developing nations, Wikipedia is often the only available source of healthcare information, even for healthcare professionals. Encouraging practitioners and researchers to share Cochrane evidence on Wikipedia empowers consumers by giving them access to accurate information relating to their health, making this knowledge accessible to those people who need it most.