A0861
Title: How to ask the right question: Choosing estimands for policy research
Authors: Nicholas Seewald - University of Pennsylvania (United States) [presenting]
Abstract: Evaluating the effects of policies is hard. Practical constraints like heterogeneous policy implementation details, slow rollouts, and small sample sizes add to the complexity of estimating causal effects. Adding to these difficulties is a lack of clearly articulated considerations for choosing estimands in policy evaluation research, which can lead to studies in which the choice of scientific question is guided by available analytic tools, rather than the other way around. The purpose is to discuss common estimands in policy evaluation, their strengths and limitations, and how they have become prominent in non-experimental research. More advanced causal questions are then highlighted, which better reflect the complex nature of health policy evaluation and require estimands beyond, say, the average treatment effect among the treated. The focus is then on complex health policy questions that are addressed with novel estimands and estimators to better understand policies nuanced effects and to move toward a healthier, more equitable future.
