Thank you for bringing this up, Anna; Stuart, thank you too. I've often wondered how the social sciences could adopt randomized controlled trials (RCT). So, I'm thrilled about recent efforts towards this trend as explained in your presentation; but I also like the perspective of @B2, a while a ago, to the effect that the way to go is to proceed on the basis of previous research findings of comparability between biomedical and behavioural RCT.
Thanks Anna (and Stewart) for such an important presentation! 👏 Ensuring uniformly high quality behavioral research across multiple sites is a critical need for best health impacts.
As to your comment:
"However, findings from randomized controlled trials of behavioral interventions may be less reproducible than findings from similarly sized clinical trials of biomedical products. If behavioral interventions produce smaller and/or more variable effects ... "
There are a number of articles (American Psychologist etc) comparing meta-analyses of both behavioral and biomedical interventions that indicate behavioral modalities generate effect sizes comparable to and often superior to medical ones. So we should start off with that baseline attitude rather than any sense of "less than" that has plagued behavioral science for too long!
Thank you for bringing this up, Anna; Stuart, thank you too. I've often wondered how the social sciences could adopt randomized controlled trials (RCT). So, I'm thrilled about recent efforts towards this trend as explained in your presentation; but I also like the perspective of @B2, a while a ago, to the effect that the way to go is to proceed on the basis of previous research findings of comparability between biomedical and behavioural RCT.
Thanks Anna (and Stewart) for such an important presentation! 👏 Ensuring uniformly high quality behavioral research across multiple sites is a critical need for best health impacts.
As to your comment:
"However, findings from randomized controlled trials of behavioral interventions may be less reproducible than findings from similarly sized clinical trials of biomedical products. If behavioral interventions produce smaller and/or more variable effects ... "
There are a number of articles (American Psychologist etc) comparing meta-analyses of both behavioral and biomedical interventions that indicate behavioral modalities generate effect sizes comparable to and often superior to medical ones. So we should start off with that baseline attitude rather than any sense of "less than" that has plagued behavioral science for too long!