Experiments Are Often Conducted in Public Health Research Where a Distinction

Essay

Experiments are often conducted in public health research where a distinction is made between an efficacy experiment and an effectiveness experiment. Efficacy experiments focus on whether a new health program works under ideal conditions; effectiveness experiments test the program under typical conditions that health professionals encounter in their day-to-day work. Discuss how efficacy experiments and effectiveness experiments reflect concerns about internal validity threats on the one hand and generalizability on the other.