Resources


Below are links to websites, articles, and documents helpful for conceptualizing, designing and implementing a randomized controlled trial in various venues.

  • Trial Tools
  • Randomization
  • Regulatory Oversight
  • Trial Registration
  • Publications
  • Trial Assistance

Consort Diagram

The Consort Diagram provides a visual organization of the study flow from recruitment efforts to final assessment.

Staying in Touch: A Fieldwork Manual of Tracking Procedures for Locating Substance Abusers in Follow-up Studies

Hall and team describe the process of tracking and locating participants for follow-up in a longitudinal trial design in this online book.

Developing a Protocol for Observational Comparative Effectiveness Research: A User’s Guide

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Effective Health Care Program supported preparation of this guide addressing the design of comparative effectiveness research on health, but the guide can be adapted to research in most areas.

Randomized Trials

Items to Get Right When Conducting Randomized Controlled Trials of Social Programs

Randomise Me

Want to create a simple RCT right now?  Get started with this easy tool. 

Bureau of Justice Assistance - U.S. Department of Justice (BJA)

The mission of BJA is to provide policy leadership and assistance that supports criminal justice field by providing state, local, and tribal communities with rapid, expert, coordinated, and data-driven training and technical assistance.

Mechanism Experiments and Policy Evaluations

Published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Ludwig and team describe how to make RCTs as useful as possible for policy purposes.

Random Harvest: Once Treated with Scorn, Randomised Control Trials Are Coming of Age

The Economist reports on the use of RCTs in development economics.

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

From the UK Government Behavioural Insights Team; free download

Randomized Controlled Trials: Questions, Answers, and Musings

Book on RCTs in healthcare; frontmatter free download

Research Information and Reporting

The Equator Network offers a comprehensive searchable database of reporting guidelines and also links to other relevant resources.

Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP)

The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) provides leadership in the protection of the rights, welfare, and wellbeing of subjects involved in research conducted or supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). OHRP helps ensure this by providing clarification and guidance, developing educational programs and materials, maintaining regulatory oversight, and providing advice on ethical and regulatory issues in biomedical and social-behavioral research.

Clinicaltrials.gov

A service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, clinicaltrials.gov is a registry and results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world.

Center for Open Science, Open Science Framework

BetaGov collaborators will be encouraged to register their RCT with the Open Science Framework, in concert with LJAF guidelines to promote transparency and sharing.

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release: June 30, 2016

FACT SHEET: Launching the Data-Driven Justice Initiative: Disrupting the Cycle of Incarceration

"[O]ur criminal justice system isn’t as smart as it should be. It’s not keeping us as safe as it should be. It is not as fair as it should be. Mass incarceration makes our country worse off, and we need to do something about it." – President Barack Obama, July 14, 2015

Every year, more than 11 million people move through America’s 3,100 local jails, many on low-level, non-violent misdemeanors, costing local governments approximately $22 billion a year. In local jails, 64 percent of people suffer from mental illness, 68 percent have a substance abuse disorder, and 44 percent suffer from chronic health problems. Communities across the country have recognized that a relatively small number of these highly-vulnerable people cycle repeatedly not just through local jails, but also hospital emergency rooms, shelters, and other public systems, receiving fragmented and uncoordinated care at great cost to American taxpayers, with poor outcomes.

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