Peter John in Nature:
Cementing the use of evidence in health and public policy has taken decades of challenging work. Fifty years ago, physicians commonly thought that babies should sleep on their fronts — advice popularized by US paediatrician Benjamin Spock and others. It took a synthesis of observations and case studies to show that this was wrong: babies should sleep on their backs to minimize the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). More than 50,000 deaths across the United States, Europe and Australasia could have been prevented had this evidence been combined and put to use sooner.
Beyond such data, the randomized controlled trial (RCT) is usually the gold standard for medical or public-policy evidence. Including a control group against which to compare interventions shows what would have happened without it. Combining many trials into a meta-analysis gives practitioners and policymakers more confidence in whether a drug or treatment works.
In Beyond Belief, journalist and science communicator Helen Pearson (who is an editor at Nature) presents an accessible account of how such practices spread. Covering topics from policing to child development, she focuses on outcomes that everyone cares about, be those safer neighbourhoods or better childbirth procedures.
More here.
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