Our mission is to make it easier for you to consider the health of equity-deserving people.

Our tools are evidence-based, standards compliant, and fully secure.

Our consultants are experts in health equity with decades of experience in evidence synthesis, health technology assessment, program and policy analysis.

The Tools

At BEST (Benkhalti Equity in Science Tools), we are committed to bringing you an intuitive, secure, and collaborative platform powered by Google’s latest technologies: Angular and Firebase. Developed by Google, both of these technologies provide the foundation for a responsive, scalable, and secure experience designed to support equity-focused scientific research. Learn more

Evidence-Based

BEST-ES and BEST-HTA were developed through an iterative process following a succession of tools, piloting, and feedback from a variety of methods experts and users. 

The Equity Checklist for Health Technology Assessment (ECHTA) was first developed, piloted, and published Here. It was later adapted into the Evidence Synthesis Equity Companion Tool and piloted. (Manuscript in peer review) 

Each of these tools were informed by the following: 

  • Literature search: the databases PubMed (Medline), Web of Science, and Google Scholar were searched for search terms under three main concepts: (1) Health equity, health disparities, health inequality, (2) reviews, rapid reviews, (3) framework, checklist, methods, methodology, analysis. Included references were published between 2014 and 2024 in English, French, or Spanish. 

  • Seminal resources: theoretical framework for Equity in HTA (Culyer & Bombard, 2011), Cochrane Collaboration Handbook (including its gold standard review steps), PRISMA-Equity, GIN-McMaster Guideline Development Checklist Extension for Health Equity, Guidance for incorporating equity to inform rapid-policy (Dewidar et al., 2022)   

  • Expert feedback (national and international conferences and webinars, personal correspondence) 

    The Benkhalti Equity in Science Tools were a result of further reflection of the main author of these tools and a response to an expressed need by various experts and users to: 

    • Update and streamline the tools 

    • Create a collaborative space where team members can contribute interactively 

    • Export the final decisions for easy input into protocols, reports or regulatory submissions

The Team