Craig Peter, Campbell Mhairi, Deidda Manuela, Dundas Ruth, Green Judith, Katikireddi Srinivasa Vittal, Lewsey Jim, Ogilvie David, de Vocht Frank, White Martin
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, School of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Health Economics and Health Technology Assessment, School of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Public Health Res (Southampt). 2025 Mar;13(3):1-59. doi: 10.3310/JTYW6582.
There has been a substantial increase in the conduct of natural experimental evaluations in the last 10 years. This has been driven by advances in methodology, greater availability of large routinely collected datasets, and a rise in demand for evidence about the impacts of upstream population health interventions. It is important that researchers, practitioners, commissioners, and users of intervention research are aware of the recent developments. This new framework updates and extends existing Medical Research Council guidance for using natural experiments to evaluate population health interventions.
The framework was developed with input from three international workshops and an online consultation with researchers, journal editors, funding representatives, and individuals with experience of using and commissioning natural experimental evaluations. The project team comprised researchers with expertise in natural experimental evaluations. The project had a funder-assigned oversight group and an advisory group of independent experts.
The framework defines key concepts and provides an overview of recent advances in designing and planning evaluations of natural experiments, including the relevance of a systems perspective, mixed methods and stakeholder involvement throughout the process. It provides an overview of the strengths, weaknesses, applicability and limitations of the range of methods now available, identifies issues of infrastructure and data governance, and provides good practice considerations.
The framework does not provide detailed information for the substantial volume of themes and material covered, rather an overview of key issues to help the conduct and use of natural experimental evaluations.
This updated and extended framework provides an integrated guide to the use of natural experimental methods to evaluate population health interventions. The framework provides a range of tools to support its use and detailed, evidence-informed recommendations for researchers, funders, publishers, and users of evidence.
This methodological project was not registered.
This project was jointly funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), with project reference MC_PC_21009. The work is published in full in ; Vol. 13, No. 3.
在过去十年中，自然实验评估的开展大幅增加。这是由方法学的进步、大量常规收集数据集的更多可得性以及对上游人群健康干预影响的证据需求增加所推动的。研究人员、从业者、委托方以及干预研究的使用者了解近期的发展情况非常重要。这个新框架更新并扩展了医学研究理事会关于使用自然实验评估人群健康干预的现有指南。
该框架是在三次国际研讨会的投入以及与研究人员、期刊编辑、资助代表以及有使用和委托自然实验评估经验的个人进行在线咨询的基础上制定的。项目团队由在自然实验评估方面具有专业知识的研究人员组成。该项目有一个由资助方指定的监督小组和一个独立专家咨询小组。
该框架定义了关键概念，并概述了自然实验设计和规划评估方面的近期进展，包括系统视角的相关性、混合方法以及整个过程中的利益相关者参与。它概述了现有一系列方法的优势、劣势、适用性和局限性，识别了基础设施和数据治理问题，并提供了良好实践考量。
该框架没有为所涵盖的大量主题和材料提供详细信息，而是对关键问题的概述，以帮助进行和使用自然实验评估。
这个更新和扩展的框架为使用自然实验方法评估人群健康干预提供了综合指南。该框架提供了一系列工具来支持其使用，并为研究人员、资助者、出版商和证据使用者提供了详细的、基于证据的建议。
这个方法学项目未进行注册。
该项目由医学研究理事会（MRC）和国家卫生与保健研究机构（NIHR）联合资助，项目编号为MC_PC_21009。该研究成果全文发表于《；第13卷，第3期》。
