Est imating Program Effects Using Effect Sizes

1 1 Gather Studies which Measure the Impact of a Program on an Outcome of Interest The first step is to determine the scope of the analysis, including the outcome of interest and target population. [...] The plot shows the effect sizes for changes in anxiety from studies on the effect of “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for Anxiety (Adult).” The further a diamond is from 0 (the vertical line), the greater the measured impact. [...] The white diamond at the bottom is the unadjusted program effect size—the weighted average of the effect sizes from the studies. [...] WSIPP projects the effect of programs in Washington by making adjustments to the effect sizes to account for the following: a) The methodological quality of each study we include in the meta-analyses; b) The degree to which findings for a particular sample of people can be generalized to other populations in Washington; and c) The relevance of the independent and dependent measures that individual. [...] 5 Project the Effect of the Program Over Time WSIPP recognizes that the effects of a program may last many years, so WSIPP’s estimates reflect the total effect of the program over the life course.