Melbourne Branch of the
Australasian EQUATOR Centre

The EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Network is an international initiative that seeks to improve the reliability and value of published health research literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting and wider use of robust reporting guidelines. There are five EQUATOR Centres worldwide, with one based at Bond University in Queensland – the Australasian EQUATOR Centre. Joanne McKenzie and Matthew Page are co-directors of the Melbourne Branch of the Australasian EQUATOR Centre.

PRISMATIC project

A key focus of the Melbourne Branch is leading the PRISMATIC project to harmonise reporting items across the PRISMA 2020 statement – the guideline that directs what to report in systematic reviews – and its extensions (e.g. PRISMA for individual participant data). The team are also working on implementation activities, such as developing web-applications, based on the harmonised PRISMA statement, to aid authors and reviewers in using and assessing the completeness of reporting; testing whether these applications are effective; developing a methodological tool for assessing the reporting quality of systematic reviews, based on PRISMA 2020; and developing AI models to automate the appraisal of reporting quality in systematic reviews.

PRISMA Executive

The PRISMA Executive oversees and supports the development, updating and implementation of PRISMA and its extensions. Matthew Page and Joanne McKenzie are currently co-chairs of the Executive.

See here for more information about PRISMA

Other reporting guideline contributions

Our team is leading the development of other guidelines including:

• The CONSORT extension for cluster randomised crossover trials;
• A reporting guideline for interrupted time series studies – CARITS (Complete and Accurate Reporting of Interrupted Time Series studies) checklist
• A checklist to aid peer-reviewers in identifying statistical issues in systematic reviews of interventions – the PRIMER (Peer Review of Issues in MEta-analyses in systematic Reviews) checklist.