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Updated: Sep 3, 2025

Evidence-based Knowledge Synthesis and Hypothesis Validation: Navigating Biomedical Knowledge Bases via Explainable AI and Agentic Systems
Published on: June 13, 2025
Weight of Evidence: Participatory Methods and Bayesian Updating to Contextualize Evidence Synthesis in Stakeholders'
Anna Dion1, Alessandro Carini-Gutierrez1, Vania Jimenez1
1Department of Family Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Abstract:
Mixed methods research is well-suited to grapple with questions of what counts as valid knowledge across different contexts and perspectives. This article introduces Weight of Evidence as a transformative procedure for stakeholders to interpret, expand on and prioritize evidence from evidence syntheses, with a focus on engaging populations historically excluded from planning and decision making. This article presents the procedure's five steps using pilot data on perinatal care of immigrant women in Canada, engaging family physicians and birth companions. Fuzzy cognitive mapping offers an accessible and systematic way to generate priors to update published literature with stakeholder priorities. Weight of Evidence is a transparent procedure to broaden what counts as expertise, contributing to a more comprehensive, context-specific, and actionable understanding.
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