a collaborative effort of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Communication Programs (CCP).
To ensure that its evidence-based family planning guidance remains current, the WHO collaborates on the CIRE system with the WHO Collaborating Centre in Reproductive Health at the CDC and the INFO Project at CCP. The system is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD).
The CIRE system facilitates the updating of WHO's evidence-based family planning guidance. The system identifies articles whose study objectives concern a topic addressed by WHO's Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use (MEC) or the Selected Practice Recommendations for Contraceptive Use (SPR). Identification begins with screening of new articles entered into the POPLINE database since January 2002. These articles are then reviewed to determine whether the evidence they provide is relevant to WHO guidance. Any updates to current guidance based on evidence from the CIRE system will be noted on the electronic versions of the MEC or SPR. Changes to classifications of the MEC or recommendations in the SPR will ordinarily be made only following expert working group meetings.
The new articles that have been identified to date are accessible by searching the CIRE system and are also available through a regular email bulletin.
WHO's on-line versions of the MEC and the SPR also feature the availability of new articles identified by the CIRE system. In addition, new postings to the CIRE system will be featured in CCP's weekly e-zine, The Pop Reporter. You may visit POPLINE for more information on obtaining full-text articles from CCP or view the WHO Family Planning Page for more information about family planning guidance.
