Clearinghouses and Evidence-Based Resources

August 1, 2020

This document provides a list of clearinghouses and evidence-based resources, which have been compiled by topic. Clearinghouses are registries of programs and interventions that have been reviewed and rated according to criteria set by each clearinghouse. Ratings typically reflect whether, and to what extent, the impact of the programs or interventions is supported by evidence. Clearinghouses can be helpful for:

  • Seeing the level of evidence behind a program or intervention;

  • Determining if a program or intervention is supported for a specific population or outcome; or

  • Identifying what the elements of successful programs or interventions are.

Clearinghouses should make the process of finding information about evidence-based programs and interventions easier, but there are considerations to note when using them such as the population:

  • Population alignment – A studied intervention may not necessarily be relevant to the population of interest.

  • Scale – was the study done locally or is it nationally representative?

  • Outcomes of interest – a program or intervention may only be effective for the outcomes specified and could have unintended consequences on other outcomes not measured (e.g. disproportionate impact)

Resources Spanning Multiple Topics

  • Social Programs That Work: “This site seeks to identify those social programs shown in rigorous studies to produce sizable, sustained benefits to participants and/or society, so that they can be deployed to help solve social problems.” Policy areas covered include employment, crime/violence prevention, education, housing, substance use, and health.​

  • Results First Clearinghouse Database: “The Results First Clearinghouse Database is an online resource that brings together information on the effectiveness of social policy programs from nine national clearinghouses. It applies color-coding to the clearinghouses’ distinct rating systems, creating a common language that enables users to quickly see where each program falls on a spectrum from negative impact to positive impact.”​

  • Blueprints for Healthy Development: Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development provides “a comprehensive, trusted registry of evidence-based interventions (programs, practices and policies) that are effective in preventing or reducing the likelihood of antisocial behavior and promoting a healthy course of youth development and adult maturity.” Topics: education, emotional well-being, physical health, problem behavior, and positive relationships.​

  • Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation (OPRE)’s Resource Library: OPRE “studies Administration for Children and Families (ACF) programs and the populations they serve through rigorous research and evaluation projects. These include evaluations of existing programs, evaluations of innovative approaches to helping low-income children and families, research syntheses and descriptive and exploratory studies.”​

  • Washington State Institute for Public Policy: “The Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) is a nonpartisan public research group. WSIPP is a team of multidisciplinary researchers who conduct applied policy research for the state legislature in a creative and collaborative environment.”​

Child Maltreatment and Care

  • Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse: “The Title IV- E Prevention Services Clearinghouse was established by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct an objective and transparent review of research on programs and services intended to provide enhanced support to children and families and prevent foster care placements.”​

  • Child Welfare Information Gateway: The Child Welfare Information Gateway “is a nationwide clearinghouse connecting professionals to resources, data, contact information, and tools covering the continuum of care for child welfare.” Topics covered include trafficking, preventing and responding to child abuse and neglect, supporting and preserving families, out-of-home care, achieving and maintaining permanency, adoption, and family-centered practice.​

  • National Center for Missing & Exploited Children: The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) “serves as an information clearinghouse and national resource center on issues related to victims, missing and exploited children and operates a national toll-free hotline.”​

  • California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC): “The CEBC is a critical tool for identifying, selecting, and implementing evidence-based child welfare practices that will improve child safety, increase permanency, increase family and community stability, and promote child and family well-being. The CEBC Program Registry provides information on both evidence-based and non-evidence-based child welfare related practices to statewide agencies, counties, public and private organizations, and individuals. “​

Education

  • IES What Works Clearinghouse: “The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviews the existing research on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education. We focus on the results from high-quality research to answer the question ‘What works in education?’”​

  • National Dropout Prevention Center’s Model Programs Database: “The Model Programs Database is a searchable database of research-based programs and information. The rating scale for the programs selected for the database of Model Programs is based on the evaluation literature of specific prevention, intervention, and recovery programs.”​

  • Best Evidence Encyclopedia (BEE): “The Best Evidence Encyclopedia is a free web site created by the Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education (CDDRE) under funding from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. The Best Evidence Encyclopedia provides summaries of scientific reviews produced by many authors and organizations, as well as links to the full texts of each review.”​

  • Evidence for ESSA: Evidence for ESSA provides “clear and authoritative information on programs that meet the ESSA evidence standards and enable educators and communities to select effective educational tools to improve student success.”​

  • Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL): “CASEL is a trusted source for knowledge about high-quality, evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL). CASEL supports educators and policy leaders and enhances the experiences and outcomes for all PreK-12 students.” The website includes the State Scan, which assesses the “development of competencies, standards, and guidelines for SEL, preschool through high school, in all 50 states.”​

Health

General Health

  • The Community Guide: “The Guide to Community Preventive Services (The Community Guide) is a collection of evidence-based findings of the Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF).  The CPSTF reviews intervention approaches across a wide range of health topics. The interventions are applicable to groups, communities, or other populations and include strategies such as healthcare system changes, public laws, workplace and school programs and policies, and community-based programs.​

  • Health Center Resource Clearinghouse: “The Health Center Resource Clearinghouse addresses the competing demands placed on a busy public health workforce by providing a broad framework of resources, tools, and supports to facilitate professionals’ ability to access and utilize critical resources.”​

  • Epistemonikos: Epistemonikos is a multilingual database that “combines the best of Evidence-Based Health Care, information technologies and a network of experts to provide a unique tool for people making decisions concerning clinical or health-policy questions. It is the largest source of systematic reviews relevant for health-decision making, and a large source of other types of scientific evidence.”​

  • SAMHSA Programs: Webpage with links to SAMHSA’s programs (e.g., Behavioral Health Equity), which offer information and resources to “improve the quality and delivery of behavioral health services across the nation.”

  • Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR): “The MMWR series is prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The MMWR series is the agency’s primary vehicle for scientific publication of timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations.”​

  • The Cochrane Library: “The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) is the leading resource for systematic reviews in health care.”​

  • Health Care Innovations Exchange: “The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) created the Health Care Innovations Exchange to speed the implementation of new and better ways of delivering health care. The Innovations Exchange supports the Agency’s mission to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable, and to work with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used.”​

  • Healthy People 2020 Evidence-Based Resources: “The Healthy People 2020 evidence-based resources identified have been selected by subject matter experts at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Each of the selected evidence-based resources has been rated and classified according to a set of specific criteria based, in part, on publication status, publication type, and number of studies.”

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

  • USA.gov’s Coronavirus webpage: This resource site provides information on the government response to COVID-19 across major topics (e.g., Health/Safety, Education, Money/Taxes, Housing, and Business).​

  • Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center: “Johns Hopkins experts in global public health, infectious disease, and emergency preparedness have been at the forefront of the international response to COVID-19. This website is a resource to help advance the understanding of the virus, inform the public, and brief policymakers in order to guide a response, improve care, and save lives.”​

  • CDC’s Coronavirus (COVID-19) webpage: This Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s webpage provides information on COVID-19 cases, data, and surveillance. The CDC also provides information on COVID-19 cases, data, and surveillance.

Substance Use, Treatment, and Prevention

  • National Institute on Drug Abuse Publications: NIDA provides access to “a wealth of information and downloadable full-text publications on a range of topics, including addiction science, medical consequences, trends and statistics, and the link between drugs and HIV/AIDS.”​

  • SAMHSA’s Evidence-Based Practices Resource Center: “The Evidence-Based Practices Resource Center provides communities, clinicians, policy-makers and others with the information and tools to incorporate evidence-based practices into their communities or clinical settings.”​

  • Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS): The APIS “provides detailed information on a wide variety of Alcohol-Related Policies in the United States at both State and Federal levels, as well as policy information regarding the recreational use of cannabis.”

Maternal and Infant Health

  • Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness (HomeVEE): “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).”​

  • Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Digital Library: The MCH Digital Library “provides access to current evidence to support State Title V programs, community agencies, educators, students, researchers, policymakers, and families. The library also provides access to seminal and historic materials from federal, state, and local programs.”​

  • Teen Pregnancy Prevention Evidence Review: “The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Evidence Review identified programs with evidence of effectiveness in reducing teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and associated sexual risk behaviors.”

HIV/AIDS

Cancer

  • Research-Tested Intervention Programs (RTIPs): “RTIPs is sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. The RTIPs website is a searchable database of evidence-based cancer control programs that provides program planners and public health practitioners easy and immediate access to: 1) programs tested in a research study, 2) publication(s) of the study findings, and 3) program products or materials used with a particular study population in a specific setting.”

Suicide and Trauma

  • Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC): The SPRC’s “searchable repository provides information on several types of suicide prevention programs, such as education/training, screening, treatment, and environmental change.”​

  • National Center for PTSD: “The Center is organized to facilitate rapid translation of science into practice, …and translation of practice into science, and ensuring that questions raised by clinical challenges are addressed using rigorous experimental protocols.” The Center also provides access to an article database and a clinical trials database on PTSD.​

Military and Labor

  • Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness’s Continuum of Evidence: The Continuum of Evidence is a “repository of programs that have been reviewed by Clearinghouse research and evaluation scientists. Programs are placed on the Continuum with descriptions to help individuals who serve military families make informed decisions regarding how to best serve these unique and valuable families.”​

  • National Center for PTSD: “The Center is organized to facilitate rapid translation of science into practice, …and translation of practice into science, and ensuring that questions raised by clinical challenges are addressed using rigorous experimental protocols.” The Center also provides access to an article database and a clinical trials database on PTSD.​

  • Clearinghouse for Labor Evaluation and Research (CLEAR): “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.”

Violence Prevention & Criminal/Juvenile Justice

  • Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Model Programs Guide: “The Model Programs Guide (MPG) contains information about evidence-based juvenile justice and youth prevention, intervention, and reentry programs. It is a resource for practitioners and communities about what works, what is promising, and what does not work in juvenile justice, delinquency prevention, and child protection and safety.”​

  • Youth.gov’s Program Directory: “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.”​

  • National Institute of Justice’s CrimeSolutions: CrimeSolutions.gov is comprised of “two components — a web-based clearinghouse of programs and practices and a process for identifying and rating those programs and practices. The clearinghouse present programs and practices that have undergone rigorous evaluations and meta-analyses.”​

  • The Vicarious Trauma Toolkit: “In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime awarded a grant to Northeastern University’s Institute on Urban Health Research and Practice to work with stakeholders in the field to develop the Vicarious Trauma Toolkit (VTT)—a state-of-the-art repository of nearly 500 resources compiled to assist victim services and first responder agencies and organizations in raising awareness about and addressing vicarious trauma.”​

  • What Works in Re-entry Clearinghouse: The What Works in Reentry Clearinghouse is “a ‘one-stop shop’ for research on the effectiveness of a wide variety of reentry programs and practices.”​

  • What Works in Policing?: “The Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University in collaboration with the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University and the City of Seattle, at the request of the Office of City Auditor, have undertaken a review of the current literature in the field” to answer the question of what works in policing.​

Poverty and Homelessness

  • Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse: “The Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse is a comprehensive, transparent, and systematic assessment of the effectiveness of interventions designed to help low-income job seekers succeed in the labor market.”​

  • Self-Sufficiency Research Clearinghouse: The Self-Sufficiency Research Clearinghouse (SSRC), administered by ICF, a virtual portal of research on low-income and TANF families. “The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation awarded a grant to ICF International to fund the launch and maintenance of the SSRC as a strategic part of OPRE’s goal – to build and disseminate knowledge about effective approaches to helping low-income children and families.”​

  • Poverty Action Lab’s Policy Insights: ” J-PAL North America, based at MIT, is a research center working to “reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence.” J-PAL’s Policy Insights “discuss the mechanisms, theories, and/or insights about human behavior that help explain the results across studies and why they are similar or different.”​

Civic Engagement

  • Corporation for National Community Service (CNCS) Evidence Exchange: “The CNCS Evidence Exchange is a digital repository of research, evaluation reports, and data. These resources focus on national service, social innovation, civic engagement, and volunteering. The types of evidence included in the repository range from impact and implementation evaluations to outcomes reports and case studies. “​

Aging and Disability

  • National Technical Assistance Center on Transition (NCTAT): “NTACT is a Technical Assistance and Dissemination project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). NTACT’s purpose is to assist State Education Agencies, Local Education Agencies, State VR agencies, and VR service providers in implementing evidence-based and promising practices ensuring students with disabilities, including those with significant disabilities, graduate prepared for success in postsecondary education and employment.”​

Tribal Communities

  • Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness (HomVEE) – Tribal Home Visiting: “The HomVEE project includes a review of studies about home visiting models implemented in tribal communities or evaluated with American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) families and children. This page lists home visiting models, reviewed by HomVEE, that have been tested in populations with at least 10 percent AIAN families or children.”​

  • Child Welfare Information Gateway – Working with American Indian Children and Families: “States and jurisdictions may work with Tribes on child welfare issues in many different ways. In all cases, workers from non-Tribal cultural backgrounds will benefit from learning about Indian history, relevant Federal laws, and cultural considerations. This section is designed to help non-Indian child welfare workers and agencies find resources on issues relevant to working with American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.”​

  • Tribal Court Clearinghouse: The Tribal Court Clearinghouse is “one of the most comprehensive websites on tribal justice system issues, and includes a wealth of tribal, state, and federal resources.”​

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