Invited Commentary: Conducting and Emulating Trials to Study Effects of Social Interventions

All else being equal, if we had 1 causal effect we wished to estimate, we would conduct a randomized trial with a protocol that mapped onto that causal question, or we would attempt to emulate that target trial with observational data. However, studying the social determinants of health often means there are not just 1 but several causal contrasts of simultaneous interest and importance, and each of these related but distinct causal questions may have varying degrees of feasibility in conducting trials. With this in mind, we discuss challenges and opportunities that arise when conducting and emulating such trials. We describe designing trials with the simultaneous goals of estimating the intention-to-treat effect, the per-protocol effect, effects of alternative protocols or joint interventions, effects within subgroups, and effects under interference, and we describe ways to make the most of all feasible randomized trials and emulated trials using observational data. Our comments are grounded in the study results of Courtin et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2022;191(8):1444-1452).