The Centre for Midwifery, Child and Family Health (CMCFH) has introduced the first ever evidence-based tool to guide critical appraisal of studies on place of birth. The recent paper published in international journal PLOS ONE The ResQu Index: A new instrument to appraise the quality of birth place research [opens external site] heralds part of the NHMRC funded project – Birthplace in Australia and was led by a team from the CMCFH (Vanessa Scarf, Christine Rossiter, Professor Caroline Homer) with colleagues from the University of British Colombia in Canada (Saraswathi Vedam and Kathrin Stoll).