by Chris Weiss and Erin Pollard, What Works Clearinghouse
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) strives to be a central and trusted source of research evidence for what works in education. But did you know that the WWC is one of several repositories of evidence produced by the federal government? Our mission at the WWC is to review the existing research on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education to provide educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions. However, there are several other government repositories that review evidence on interventions that impact children and schools, reviews that may be of use and interest to WWC users.
Different Clearinghouses for Different Needs.
The mission of the different clearinghouses and the reasons for different reviews stems from the unique mission of each agency and the specific focus of the clearinghouse. The Department of Education focuses primarily on prekindergarten through postsecondary education; however, many public health and crime prevention programs are implemented through schools. So, for example, you would find information about a school-based bullying prevention program on the National Institute of Justice’s Crime Solutions website. The WWC would not review the evidence of this program’s effectiveness because its aim is to reduce bullying and victimization, rather than education-focused outcomes.
Some interventions are reviewed by multiple clearinghouses.
Users are often surprised that an intervention might be reviewed by multiple clearinghouses. For example, the WWC reviewed the evidence and created an intervention report on Career Academies, a school-within-school program where students take both career-related and academic courses, as well as acquire work experience. But reviews of the program are included in other clearinghouses. The Department of Labor’s CLEAR reviewed the study because of the intervention’s increase of student’s earnings. Similarly, the National Institute of Justice’s Crime Solutions has reviewed the intervention because it showed an effect on increasing earnings of young men – an economic factor linked to lowered risk of criminal activity. Each clearinghouse looked at different outcomes from the same study to highlight the domains they find most relevant to achieving their goal.
Each repository is different. The WWC may be your best bet – or others may fit your needs better.
We encourage users to look at the other clearinghouses to find information on outcomes that are outside of our scope. These sites have a lot of great information to offer. Here is a list of the other repositories for finding evidence:
- Clearinghouse for Labor Evaluation and Research (CLEAR) – Department of Labor. CLEAR's mission is to make research on labor topics more accessible to practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and the public more broadly so that it can inform their decisions about labor policies and programs. CLEAR identifies and summarizes many types of research, including descriptive statistical studies and outcome analyses, implementation, and causal impact studies.
- Compendium of Evidence-Based Interventions and Best Practices for HIV Prevention - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Evidence-Based Interventions and Best Practices in the Compendium are identified by CDC’s Prevention Research Synthesis Project through a series of ongoing systematic reviews. Each eligible intervention is evaluated against explicit a priori criteria and has shown sufficient evidence that the intervention works. Interventions may fall into one or more chapters including: Risk Reduction that includes PrEP-related outcomes and outcomes such as injection drug use, condom use, HIV/STD/Hepatitis infection; Linkage to, Retention in, and Re-engagement in HIV Care that includes outcomes such as entering and staying in HIV care; Medication Adherence that includes outcomes such as adhering to HIV medication and HIV viral load; and the most recently added Structural Interventions that includes outcomes such as HIV testing, social determinants of health, and stigma. Information sheets are available for all identified evidence-based interventions and best practices on the PRS Compendium Website.
- CrimeSolutions - National Institute of Justice, Department of Justice. The clearinghouse, accessible via the CrimeSolutions.gov website, present programs and practices that have undergone rigorous evaluations and meta-analyses. The site assesses the strength of the evidence about whether these programs achieve criminal justice, juvenile justice, and crime victim services outcomes in order to inform practitioners and policy makers about what works, what doesn't, and what's promising.
- Evidence Exchange - Corporation for National and Community Service. A digital repository of sponsored research, evaluation reports, and data. These resources focus on national service, volunteering, and civic engagement.
- Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness (HomVEE) – Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services. HomVEE provides an assessment of the evidence of effectiveness for home visiting models that target families with pregnant women and children from birth to kindergarten entry (that is, up through age 5).
- Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Evidence Review – Department of Health and Human Services. A transparent systematic review of the teen pregnancy prevention literature to identify programs with evidence of effectiveness in reducing teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and associated sexual risk behaviors.
- The Community Guide - Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF). A collection of evidence-based findings to help you select interventions to improve health and prevent disease in your state, community, community organization, business, healthcare organization, or school. The CPSTF issues findings based on systematic reviews of effectiveness and economic evidence that are conducted with a methodology developed by the CPSTF.
- youth.gov – Interagency. The youth.gov Program Directory features evidence-based programs whose purpose is to prevent and/or reduce delinquency or other problem behaviors in young people.