Sure Start in England

Authors

Jay Belsky, University of London
Alastair H. Leyland, MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit
Jacqueline Barnes, University of London
Edward Melhuish, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

105554

Publication Details

Belsky, J., Leyland, A., Barnes, J. & Melhuish, E. (2009). Sure Start in England. The Lancet, 373 (9661), 381-381.

Abstract

In her Comment (Nov 8, p 1610) on our second phase of evaluation of Sure Start local programmes in England, Penny Kane makes several points with which we could not agree more. Like her, we would have much preferred to see a randomised controlled trial done, since this would have afforded much stronger causal inferences than the quasi-experimental investigation we undertook. We also agree that the fact that we drew on data collected by two different research teams raises questions about the confidence that can be placed in conclusions drawn.