“Research evidence has undoubtedly been crucial in formulating countless global health policies which have saved many millions of lives,” but “at the same time, we believe there are several common fallacies about its ‘real world’ application,” Gavin Yamey and Richard Feachem of the Evidence to Policy initiative write in an Evidence-Based Medicine perspective.

They “argu[e] that improving the evidence flow from RCT (randomized controlled trial) to policymaker is necessary but insufficient. We also need to better understand the sociopolitical and cultural influences upon policy development, the complex apparatus of large-scale implementation and the ‘real world’ impact of such implementation. And we are going to need better tools for the job than the RCT alone” (June 2011).