The ethics of public policy RCTs: The principle of policy equipoise

In this article, I ask whether a principle analogous to the principle of clinical equipoise should govern the design and conduct of RCTs evaluating the effectiveness of policy interventions. I answer this question affirmatively, and introduce and defend the principle of policy equipoise. According t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bioethics
Main Author: MacKay, Douglas (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell [2018]
In: Bioethics
IxTheo Classification:NCH Medical ethics
NCJ Ethics of science
Further subjects:B Public Policy
B equipoise
B research ethics
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:In this article, I ask whether a principle analogous to the principle of clinical equipoise should govern the design and conduct of RCTs evaluating the effectiveness of policy interventions. I answer this question affirmatively, and introduce and defend the principle of policy equipoise. According to this principle, all arms of a policy RCT must be, at minimum, in a state of equipoise with the best proven policy that is also morally and practically attainable and sustainable. For all arms of a policy RCT, policy experts must either (1) reasonably disagree about whether the trial arms are more effective than this policy, or (2) know that they are.
ISSN:1467-8519
Contains:Enthalten in: Bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12403