The Social Science Research Council recently submitted a response to an RFI from the National Institutes of Health’s Common Fund, detailing how the NIH could improve the reliability of evidence in behavioral research by borrowing the idea of master protocols from the field of oncology. Master protocols are coordinated multisite trials followed by meta-analysis designed to assess both the internal and the external validity of interventions across populations. Here, we share a related submission to an RFI from USAID, suggesting that master protocols could also help USAID achieve its goals of improving the quality of its social and behavioral change (SBC) programming while simultaneously ensuring responsiveness to local SBC priorities and centering locally-led SBC research teams.

Social Science Research Council President Anna Harvey shares a recent submission to an RFI from the NIH’s Common Fund, detailing how the NIH could improve the reliability of evidence in behavioral research by borrowing the idea of master protocols from the field of oncology. Master protocols are coordinated multisite trials, followed by meta-analysis, to assess both the internal and external validity of interventions across populations. NIH support for master protocols to evaluate the impacts of behavioral interventions on outcomes like vaccination uptake could significantly advance the policy relevance of evidence in behavioral health research.