This is the blog for the paper "To RCT or not to RCT: deciding when “more evidence is needed” for public health policy and practice."
The paper was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health in June 2011:
http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2011/06/07/jech.2010.116483.full
The paper describes a simple decision aid to help policymakers, researchers and other decisionmakers assess the potential “information value” of a new trial of a public health intervention. It is based on a flowchart which aims to make explicit (i) the user’s information needs; and (ii) the intended use of the new information which the study will produce; (iii) the added value of the evidence to be derived from the new study and (iv) the levels of precision, bias and generalisability required by the user.
We welcome comments on the paper, including suggestions for revisions and improvements, and description of how it has been used. These can be posted here (with or without a name), or emailed directly to mark.petticrew@lshtm.ac.uk
