Field Trials of Health Interventions

Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Before new interventions are released into disease control programmes, it is essential that they are carefully evaluated in field trials'. These may be complex and expensive undertakings, requiring the follow-up of hundreds, or thousands, of individuals, often for long periods. Descriptions of the detailed procedures and methods used in the trials that have been conducted have rarely been published. A consequence of this, individuals planning such trials have few guidelines available and little access to knowledge accumulated previously, other than their own. In this manual, practical issues in trial design and conduct are discussed fully and in sufficient detail, that Field Trials of Health Interventions may be used as a toolbox' by field investigators. It has been compiled by an international group of over 30 authors with direct experience in the design, conduct, and analysis of field trials in low and middle income countries and is based on their accumulated knowledge and experience. Available as an open access book via Oxford Medicine Online, this new edition is a comprehensive revision, incorporating the new developments that have taken place in recent years with respect to trials, including seven new chapters on subjects ranging from trial governance, and preliminary studies to pilot testing.