Dear HIFA colleagues, Today is World Evidence-Based Healthcare (EBHC) Day!
Below are extracts from the EBHC website. https://worldebhcday.org/2026-campaign
We invite discussion on the issues raised. Email hifa@hifaforums.org
[We would also welcome a Spotlight on this topic. If you or your organisation would like to co-sponsor a Spotlight on AI or any priority topic of your choice, let us know: www.hifa.org/spotlights HIFA is currently available for any week in January or March 2027]
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EVIDENCE AND AI: PEOPLE AT THE CENTRE
World Evidence-Based Healthcare (EBHC) Day 2026 explores the role of artificial intelligence in evidence-based healthcare, and how people can remain at the centre of the way AI is developed, used, governed and evaluated in health decision-making.
The campaign invites the global evidence community to consider what is possible when AI strengthens trust, equity and rigour – and what is at stake when it does not.
AI is rapidly transforming the health evidence landscape. From automated evidence syntheses and living reviews to clinical decision-support tools and diagnostic algorithms, AI is transforming how research evidence is produced, synthesised, translated, deliberated, and used. AI is also changing how people access health information, how clinicians make decisions, and how health systems reach the populations they serve.
AI holds immense promise for making evidence more relevant, timely, accessible, and responsive. Yet the same technology can embed biases, deepen inequities, amplify misinformation and erode trust, and undermine the methodological rigour on which EBHC was built.
Furthermore, AI has the potential to help address some of the world’s greatest environmental crises, many (if not all) of which affect human health. However, the technology itself has a large impact on the environment, and high energy and natural resource requirements, leading to a need for energy-efficient AI models in healthcare, evidence ecosystems, and beyond.
A growing body of research, framing the emergence of “EBP 2.0” (the second iteration of evidence-based practice), has shown that meaningful public involvement not only improves the ethics of AI but also the science of AI. It is essential that the evidence community engages with AI in ways that keep people at the centre. We need to acknowledge that we have agency in AI’s development and how it can transform, and it is something we must actively direct. The tools are powerful, but the choices are ours.
This world's EBHC Day campaign asks: How do we keep people at the centre of an AI-enabled evidence ecosystem? As partners, not passive participants
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org