Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Nonrandomized Designs (TREND)

Transparent Reporting of Evlaluations with Nonrandomized Designs

Evidence-based public health decisions are based on evaluations of intervention studies with randomized and nonrandomized designs. Transparent reporting is crucial for assessing the validity and efficacy of these intervention studies, and, it facilitates synthesis of the findings for evidence-based recommendations. Therefore, the mission of the Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Nonrandomized Designs (TREND) group is to improve the reporting standards of nonrandomized evaluations of behavioral and public health interventions.

The TREND Statement
TREND logo

The TREND statement Cdc-pdf[338 KB]1 has a 22-item checklist Cdc-pdf[368 KB] specifically developed to guide standardized reporting of nonrandomized controlled trials. The TREND statement complements the widely adopted CONsolidated Standards Of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement developed for randomized controlled trials. A collective effort in promoting transparent reporting is valuable to improve research synthesis and advance evidence-based recommendations for best practices and policies. We encourage all researchers, funding agencies, journal editors, and reviewers to use the TREND Statement as a guide when designing evaluation studies, reporting evaluation results, and reviewing manuscripts for scientific publication.

Because the TREND statement is intended to be an evolving document, we welcome your comments and feedback to help revise the statement periodically

The TREND statement was first published in a special issue of the American Journal of Public Health in March 2004. The issue was devoted to evaluation research. This special issue contains a number of papers related to the use of nonrandomized or quasi-experimental designs in the evaluation of interventions.

1 Des Jarlais DC, Lyles C, Crepaz N, and the TREND Group. Improving the reporting quality of nonrandomized evaluations of behavioral and public health interventions: The TREND statement. Am J Public Health. 2004;94:361-366.