AUTHOR=Chene Geneviève , Preau Marie , Lenert Paulette , Martin-Prevel Yves , Giorgi Roch 
  
TITLE=Governing Evidence in Contentious Times: A GUARD Framework for Public Health Leadership
  
JOURNAL=Public Health Reviews
  
VOLUME=Volume 47 - 2026
  
YEAR=2026
  
URL=https://www.ssph-journal.org/journals/public-health-reviews/articles/10.3389/phrs.2026.1609645
  
DOI=10.3389/phrs.2026.1609645
  
ISSN=2107-6952
  
ABSTRACT=Public health leadership faces widening inequities, uneven life expectancy trends, and growing information disorder. Experience from COVID-19 showed that shortcomings often stem less from lack of evidence than from weaknesses in how evidence inform decisions. This commentary reframes the challenge as one of evidence governance: ensuring that knowledge is interpreted, debated, and translated into fair, accountable action. We introduce GUARD, a practice-oriented framework for governing evidence: Govern in public, User power-sharing, Architect and audit integrity, Resist manipulation of meaning, and Demonstrate legitimacy. Rather than proposing new principles, GUARD operationalizes existing ones into implementable governance routines, offering public health leaders a practical pathway to strengthen legitimacy, reduce inequities, and sustain trustworthiness under uncertainty.