Avoiding Randomization Failure in Program Evaluation, with Application to the Medicare Health Support Program
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Author
Coberly, Carter
Pope, James E.
Wells, Aaron
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https://doi.org/10.1089/pop.2010.0074Metadata
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King, Gary, Richard Neilsen, Carter Coberley, James E. Pope, and Aaron Wells. 2011. Avoiding randomization failure in program evaluation, with application to the medicare health support program. Population Health Management 14(Suppl 1): S11-S22.Abstract
We highlight common problems in the application of random treatment assignment in large-scale program evaluation. Random assignment is the defining feature of modern experimental design, yet errors in design, implementation, and analysis often result in real-world applications not benefiting from its advantages. The errors discussed here cover the control of variability, levels of randomization, size of treatment arms, and power to detect causal effects, as well as the many problems that commonly lead to post-treatment bias. We illustrate these issues by identifying numerous serious errors in the Medicare Health Support evaluation and offeringrecommendations to improve the design and analysis of this and other large-scale randomized experiments.
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