Posts Tagged With: RCTs

Senn’s post led me to investigate some links to Ben Goldacre (author of “Bad Science” and “Bad Pharma”) and the “Behavioral Insights Team” in the UK.  The BIT was “set up in July 2010 with a remit to find innovative ways of encouraging, enabling and supporting people to make better choices for themselves.^”  A BIT blog is here”. A promoter of evidence-based public policy, Goldacre is not quite the scientific skeptic one might have imagined. What do readers think?  (The following is a link from Goldacre’s Jan. 6 blog.)

Test, Learn, Adapt: Developing Public Policy with Randomised Controlled Trials

‘Test, Learn, Adapt’ is a paper which the Behavioural Insights Team* is publishing in collaboration with Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science, and David Torgerson, Director of the University of York Trials Unit. The paper argues that Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs), which are now widely used in medicine, international development, and internet-based businesses, should be used much more extensively in public policy.
 …The introduction of a randomly assigned control group enables you to compare the effectiveness of new interventions against what would have happened if you had changed nothing. RCTs are the best way of determining whether a policy or intervention is working. We believe that policymakers should begin using them much more systematically. Continue reading →