Policy and Practice April 2019

president‘s memo By Tracy Wareing Evans

Bridging the Divide: Effectively Translating Evidence-Based Policymaking

T here is a lot of talk these days about evidence-based policymaking, 1 and with good reason. Grounding health and human services policy in evidence of what works is foundational to fos- tering systems that enable better, faster outcomes for families and communities; provide more targeted interventions; address structural inequities; and ultimately reduce costs. Put another way, all of us want to know that our public investments are working to advance social and economic mobility for all people in all places. And, yet, we know that too often there is a wide discrepancy in how the research field, philanthropy, policymakers, and practi- tioners approach evidence. While I am not researcher, I have the good fortune of working

standard research designs or a resis- tance to anything labeled “evidence based” because of the associated cost and time. This tension is particularly con- cerning when fiscal policy gets tied to funding only those programs or interventions with the RCT label. We risk cutting whole areas of needed services—where there are necessary interventions (e.g., services for sex trafficking victims) 2 for which no iden- tified evidence-based programs exist. Moreover, not all interventions are created equal nor should they be. For example, capturing how light-touch interventions effectively prevent longer term needs is likely to be revealed

alongside seasoned academicians and researchers, in addition to leaders at all levels of government, and the practi- tioners who are closest to the ground in communities. In doing so, I have come to appreciate the discipline of clearly articulated research questions and theories of change; the importance of sample size and integrity of data; and the need to apply appropriate qualita- tive and quantitative methodologies and study designs. At the same time, I have witnessed an overreliance on large, clinical, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that while certainly of value to the field from a long-term perspective, rarely translate well in the field in real time and often drive experts back into extreme positions— either an insistence on the rigor of gold

See President’s Memo on page 30

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April 2019 Policy&Practice