Our goal is to maintain up to date evidence-based pathways that account for the diverse range of settings in which health care is provided in India – from home visits by community health workers in rural hamlets to advanced "super specialty" hospitals in urban India.
The Community Science Alliance is a network of community based health care organizations, technology companies, and physician scientists from India and the US, committed to advancing evidence-based medicine in all clinical settings in India.
The network came together in 2021 to address the lack of reliable and sound scientific guidelines for COVID-19 management across rural and urban India. Publishing widely in leading scientific journals and the Indian media, we contributed to making COVID-19 treatment guidelines in India more in line with what was feasible, realistic and affordable, without compromising scientific rigor. We have now expanded our mandate to training a generation of clinicians in critical appraisal, evidence-based practice and innovation.
The CSA leverages cutting-edge clinical advances, digital technology and task-sharing to improve evidence-based clinical care delivery. At each level of healthcare delivery, from the general practitioner's clinic to a tertiary care hospital, CSA provides AI-assisted decision support tools to clinicians to guide diagnostic and therapeutic choices based on available resources, population demographics, local epidemiology, availability and affordability.
Our clinical pathways are unique among decision-support tools because they are hyper-contextualized to the local environment, allowing clinicians to order tests, prescribe medications and guide referrals based on what is actually available, feasible and scientifically sound.
Clinical practice in high-income settings is informed by guidelines, enabling protocolized, standardized workflows that are safe and evidence-based. Through a rigorous development process that combines critical appraisal of local and global guidelines and analysis of local availability of diagnostics and therapeutics, the CSA continues to develop guidelines that are specific to the practice setting and resources available.
These guidelines, combined with local epidemiological, demographic and clinical data, where available, allow for AI-powered decision support tools to guide clinical care and public health decisions. This hyper-contextualized knowledge is made available through personalized apps, podcasts, and fellowships, sustaining a community of practitioners that inform and maintain the guidelines.