BMJ  2004;328:512-514 (28 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7438.512

Education and debate

Mentoring to reduce antisocial behaviour in childhood

¹ Child Health Research and Policy Unit, Institute of Health Sciences, City University, London EC1A 7QN, ² Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health (MC 923), University of Illinois at Chicago, 1603 W Taylor St, Chicago, IL 60612-4324, USA, ³ Department of Health Sciences, University of York, York YO10 5DD

The effects of social interventions need to be examined in real life situations as well as studies

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Politicians and policy makers are increasingly interested in evidence based decision making. They are under pressure to look to research for solutions to policy problems and justify programmes by reference to the knowledge base. It is tempting for policy makers to grasp any research on seemingly intractable social problems, however slim, in the hope of finding simple solutions. Rolling out national programmes based on inadequate evidence can, however, do more harm than good. We use the example of mentoring for young people with, or at risk of, antisocial behaviour problems to show the potential dangers of running ahead of the evidence.

Public health interventions to improve outcomes for children are an example of policy and research evolving in tandem.^1-3 Interventions such as Highscope, Headstart, parenting education, home visiting, and mentoring have been well designed and robustly evaluated, some of them by randomised controlled trials.^4-10 Nevertheless, parent education, home visiting, and . . . [Full text of this article]

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