Wikipedia is one of the most important online encyclopedic resources globally, with far more pages available than any other reputable encyclopedia currently. Wikipedia allows anyone to edit its content and add to its pages, a feature that acts as a double-edged sword; while it facilitates rapid expansion, it also increases the risk of adding inaccurate information and unreliable sources. This is why Persian Wikipedia, despite having over 800,000 articles, still has a long way to go to match the reliability of English Wikipedia.
The medical and health information on Persian Wikipedia is both incomplete and, in many cases, inconsistent with evidence-based modern science. Since Wikipedia pages often appear on the first page of internet search results, many people rely on and trust them. Therefore, editing this information on Wikipedia can significantly improve the quality of health information available to Persian speakers and help minimize existing gaps.
In this context, the Cochrane Collaboration has been directly partnering with Wikipedia since 2014 to provide English-language health and medical pages with the best available evidence. The success of this project has led to an increase in the use of updated evidence. Based on this model, defining and implementing a similar project for Persian Wikipedia presents an excellent opportunity, to enhance health and medical literacy in the community using up-to-date evidence.
In alignment with this goal and its commitment to providing evidence-based information, Cochrane Iran has initiated a joint project with the Cochrane Collaboration, and since September 2023, translated, revised, and published 19 pages on Persian Wikipedia, which include the following topics: