The US Congressional Funding Bill enacted last month speaks in resonant terms of the need to monitor the results of World Bank development initiatives.

“The Secretary of the Treasury,” it says, “shall seek to ensure that development banks … rigorously evaluate the impact of selected projects, programs and financing operations, and emphasize the use of random assignment in conducting such evaluations, where appropriate and to the extent feasible…” 

Beyond their familiarity to a dedicated Prevention Action readership, what might be the enduring significance of a few politically-pointed phrases? According to one long-time champion of the standards of evidence drawn up by the Society for Prevention Research, they represent a great leap forward.

Jon Baron is the President of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, a non-partisan, non-profit organization which aims to promote policies and programs rooted in scientific evidence. 

The Coalition is working on the US Congress and the federal agencies to persuade them to divert more funds into rigorous evaluations and to support the widespread implementation of programs that have been proven to enhance young people’s lives. 

A previous decade in the Defense Department has given Baron unusual insight into how to influence policy and get bills passed. That experience combined with his longstanding ties with the Society for Prevention Research has put him in a uniquely balanced position on the dividing line between US research and policy. 

Clarity and conciseness make the SPR standards of evidence a powerful tool, he explains. “They articulate at one level the big principles and rigor we need policy makers to understand, and at another provide the detailed blueprint that researchers must follow if we want to know whether or not an intervention works.”
 
He offers four basic tactics for grabbing the attention of policy makers and persuading them to work toward evidence-based policies. 

“First we sober the conversation by demonstrating the lack of progress being made in the area - be this improvement of education, reduction of poverty and so on.” More often than not policy makers are already only too aware of these issues, but sometimes it is necessary to burst any bubbles of over-optimism. 

“Second, we promote rigorous evaluation and high standards of evidence as a means of challenging false assumptions”. He and his team present policy makers with examples of well-meaning, highly recommended interventions that have been shown to be ineffective, even damaging.

Presenting clear evidence that an aspect of the conventional wisdom can be so hopelessly flawed opens a window to understanding why there has been no progress. [See, for example: Truth will out - they just don’t know]

After hitting them with the bad news, he gives examples of interventions that have been shown to have real impact by adhering to strict standards of evidence in rigorous randomized evaluations. 

The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy publishes a summary of these evidence-based programs on their Social Programs That Work website. They have also launched an initiative, which Congress is presently reviewing, to identify programs that match up to the SPR’s exemplary standards. It is called The top tier.

The fourth and final step for policy makers is “the offer”. Baron tells them that the remedy is in their own hands. For Government to have a demonstrable impact on people’s lives, it is necessary to increase the number of research-proven interventions, and, where they already exist, to provide strong financial and moral incentives and assistance to adopt them more widely. 

He and his team have been instrumental in persuading the Obama administration to invest $8.6 billion in home visitation over the next ten years. Another $110 million has been earmarked in the 2010 budget for evidence-based prevention programs targeting teenage pregnancy.
[See: Show me the money and I’ll show you what works]

The Coalition says it is increasingly confident that progress is being made and keenly aware that they must balance demands for evidence with the parallel push for innovation. 

• Society for Prevention Research standards were given a major boost when their core concepts were incorporated into the recent recommendation of the US National Academy of Sciences. It is likely to prove highly influential within the US and is audible in the World Bank evaluation language.  [See: Recommendation on criteria for establishing strong evidence of effectiveness].