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Comparative effectiveness (CE) research refers to studies that compare “the benefits and harms of different interventions and strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat and monitor health conditions in real-world settings,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Such research is thought to be a critical, but underfunded, contributor to improving health outcomes. To explore the current state of CE research, investigators reviewed all the roughly 1500 original research articles published during 16 months in 2008–2009 in the six highest-impact general and internal medicine journals.
They identified 328 studies in which medications were evaluated; in 104 studies that were classified as CE research, researchers compared one me…