The findings from evaluations of parenting programmes can help inform policy and practice decisions, including how best to allocate scarce resources designed to support families. However, studies often fail to consider the extent to which the findings can be generalised to other settings or populations. One, yet unexplored solution, is to compare study findings and large-scale data sets including publicly available population data. The aims of this study were to assess the feasibility of assessing sample representativeness using publicly available data and to identify the challenges involved in considering the generalisability of study findings. Sociodemographic data from two community-based evaluations of parenting programmes conducted in England and Ireland between 2015 and 2018 were used in the study (N = 395 parent-infant dyads). The results indicated some differences between the trial samples and the wider population. However, it is difficult to reach definitive conclusions about these findings due to the limitations associated with using the comparative data sets. Our study revealed three key challenges, including: (1) how best to define and conceptualise representativeness; (2) the availability of comparative data sets; and (3) the quality of the available data. Our study suggests that there is a need for up-to-date, good-quality comparative data sets to allow for the assessment of representativeness. Further work is required to identify parameters for making claims about representativeness, specifically regarding the acceptable level of difference between the target population and the study sample. This is the first study to explore the feasibility of using publicly available population data in two jurisdictions, for the purpose of making judgements about the representativeness of the findings from parent programmes. It is hoped that our results will encourage further investigation around the reporting of trial external validity to enable effective decision-making at policy and practice level.

中文翻译：

---

在英格兰和爱尔兰提供的基于社区的育儿计划评估中评估样本代表性的挑战

育儿计划评估的结果有助于为政策和实践决策提供信息，包括如何最好地分配旨在支持家庭的稀缺资源。然而，研究往往没有考虑研究结果在多大程度上可以推广到其他环境或人群。一种尚未探索的解决方案是比较研究结果和大规模数据集，包括公开可用的人口数据。本研究的目的是评估使用公开数据评估样本代表性的可行性，并确定考虑研究结果的普遍性所涉及的挑战。该研究使用了 2015 年至 2018 年间在英格兰和爱尔兰进行的两项基于社区的育儿计划评估的社会人口学数据（N = 395 父婴二元组）。结果表明试验样本与更广泛的人群之间存在一些差异。然而，由于与使用比较数据集相关的限制，很难就这些发现得出明确的结论。我们的研究揭示了三个关键挑战，包括：（1）如何最好地定义和概念化代表性；(2) 比较数据集的可用性；(3) 可用数据的质量。我们的研究表明，需要最新的、高质量的比较数据集来评估代表性。需要进一步的工作来确定用于声明代表性的参数，特别是关于目标人群和研究样本之间可接受的差异水平。这是第一项探索在两个司法管辖区使用公开可用人口数据的可行性的研究，目的是判断母计划调查结果的代表性。希望我们的结果将鼓励围绕试验外部有效性报告的进一步调查，以便在政策和实践层面做出有效的决策。