INTRODUCTION:
global public health research continues to privilege western epistemologies, quantitative hierarchies, and institutional authority, often marginalizing indigenous knowledge, lived experience, and locally generated evidence. these hierarchies influence what research is funded, published, and implemented, reinforcing colonial power dynamics within global health systems. this organized session examines how evidence appraisal itself functions as an ethical and political act and challenges conventional definitions of rigor in public health scholarship.

METHODS:
this interactive one hour session employs an experiential learning design in which participants critically evaluate anonymized real world research abstracts. participants work in small groups to score abstracts using contrasting appraisal frameworks, including conventional academic metrics, community centered knowledge systems, and funder driven criteria. a brief facilitated lecture introduces evidence hierarchies, colonial bias in research evaluation, and power asymmetries in knowledge production. scoring frameworks are then rotated to allow participants to observe how valuation criteria alter outcomes related to funding, publication, and implementation decisions.

RESULTS:
participants observe substantial variation in abstract rankings depending on the framework applied. abstracts emphasizing lived experience, indigenous knowledge, or contextual relevance demonstrate increased perceived value under community centered frameworks but are often deprioritized under traditional academic criteria. the exercise reveals how dominant evaluation norms systematically exclude certain forms of knowledge while shaping global health agendas. participants report increased critical awareness of their own reviewer practices and greater confidence in applying pluralistic evidence standards.

CONCLUSIONS:
this session reframes abstract review as an ethical intervention rather than a neutral technical process. by making power visible in evidence appraisal, the session equips researchers, reviewers, and decision makers with tools to decolonize evaluation practices and broaden definitions of rigor. this approach supports more equitable knowledge production and strengthens global public health research relevance, legitimacy, and impact.