J-PAL North America June 2023 Newsletter
Good morning,
Today, we’re announcing the release of the “Health Care Evaluation Toolkit,” a new set of research resources for social scientists conducting randomized evaluations within health care contexts in the United States. It is our hope that these resources will support researchers interested in the health care system and demystify parts of the process that may be challenging or unclear. Moreover, we hope that these resources will strengthen the quality and rigor of randomized evaluations and thus better inform strategies to make health care delivery in the United States more efficient, effective, and equitable.
These resources draw from a decade of experience at J-PAL North America conducting randomized evaluations in the health care context, building on the work of our Health Care Delivery Initiative and the MIT Roybal Center. Throughout the toolkit, we highlight lessons learned from past studies conducted by researchers in our network and translate them into actionable advice. In an accompanying blog post, we further highlight the voices of these researchers and their experiences.
This toolkit also expands our North America Evaluation Toolkit, which supports randomized evaluations more broadly. I invite you to explore these additional resources and, if you’re interested in learning more about the resources or have ideas for future extensions, I invite you to reach out.
Jesse Gubb, Senior Research Manager
J-PAL North America
Announcing the Health Care Evaluation Toolkit
J-PAL North America’s new Health Care Evaluation Toolkit provides practical guidance and real-world case studies for social scientists conducting randomized evaluations of health care delivery interventions, running studies within health care systems, and using health data in the United States. Topics include publishing in medical journals, navigating hospital IRBs, acquiring and using admin data (with a focus on HIPAA), conducting power calculations for health-related studies, and managing intake and consent processes in health care contexts. These public resources provide guidance on real-world problems that researchers face in order to strengthen the quality and rigor of randomized evaluations in the health care field. Read the blog >>
J-PAL North America launches the Tutoring Evaluation Accelerator
J-PAL North America is partnering with Accelerate to build the capacity of tutoring partners to implement and evaluate evidence-informed, high-impact tutoring programs. In the wake of prolonged disruptions to learning from Covid-19, many schools and districts are implementing innovative tutoring programs to help students recover, but their impact and sustainability are not yet known. J-PAL North America will deliver customized trainings on key evaluation concepts, provide hands-on technical assistance, and build connections with expert researchers in J-PAL’s network for a cohort of tutoring programs. Read more about the grantees and our community of practice >>
Building research partnerships to understand the promises of Summer Youth Employment Programs
In our recent two-part blog series, J-PAL affiliated researchers Sara Heller (University of Michigan) and Judd Kessler (University of Pennsylvania), and their implementing partner Julia Breitman (New York City Department of Youth and Community Development), share reflections and lessons learned from their experience collaborating to evaluate a component of the NYC Summer Youth Employment Program. Part one addresses partnership building and the development of the research question and part two discusses the importance of evidence generation and utilization in policymaking.
Featured Research Resource
Checklist for social scientists publishing in medical journals: before, during, and after running an RCT
Economists and other social scientists who are interested in publishing results from health care evaluations in medical journals may encounter unfamiliar requirements that necessitate advanced planning. “Results from our workplace wellness evaluation were desk-rejected at one medical journal because we had pre-registered our trial in a registry that did not meet the journal's specific requirements. This experience highlighted the importance of our research team being aware of the unique publication requirements of medical journals.” says David Molitor (University of Illinois). This resource provides a checklist for publishing in a medical journal with key steps before, during, and after study implementation.
This resource is part of our “Health Care Evaluation Toolkit,” supported by the MIT Roybal Center and the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health.
Featured Evaluation Summary
The effects of youth employment: Evidence from New York City Summer Youth Employment Program lotteries
Summer Youth Employment Programs in the United States aim to reduce barriers to employment and opportunity for young people. In this randomized evaluation, researchers used a lottery to investigate the impact of the New York City Summer Youth Employment Program on youth earnings, employment, college enrollment, incarceration, and mortality. The study finds that the program increased earnings and employment during the year of participation, caused a modest decrease in earnings in subsequent years, and had no effect on college enrollment. The program also decreased the incarceration and mortality rates of program participants.
Media Highlights
A Time for Work
Alicia Sasser Modestino, Vital City
At Yale, scholars and policymakers unite to improve state Medicaid program
Mike Cummings, Yale News