Description
Feasibility & Protocol Assessment
The cheapest way to lose a year of research time is to complete a study that was never going to be publishable. This assessment exists to catch that before it happens. A senior analyst takes your research question, checks it against the three things that most often kill a registry study, and gives you a written recommendation, including, when it is the right answer, a recommendation not to proceed.
The fee is credited in full against any study you subsequently commission. If we tell you to go ahead and you do, this costs you nothing. If we tell you to stop, it has saved you a great deal more than it cost.
What We Actually Check
- Is the question already answered? A structured literature search on your exact exposure-outcome pair in your chosen database. Registry topics saturate quickly (the same NHANES association or SEER survival comparison is often published three or four times), and a paper that adds nothing to a saturated literature will not clear a good journal however well it is executed. We tell you what already exists and whether your angle is genuinely distinct.
- Can the data support it? Whether every variable you need was actually collected, in which years or cycles, and with consistent definitions across that window. This is where questions most often fail: the exposure exists, the outcome exists, but never in the same release, or a measurement method changed midway and makes the trend uninterpretable.
- Do you have the power? A real power or precision calculation for your specific design, events per variable for a survival model, effective sample size after complex-survey weighting, instrument strength for a Mendelian randomization design. Underpowered registry studies are common precisely because the raw row count looks reassuring while the analytic sample does not.
What You Receive
- A written feasibility report – Findings against all three checks, in plain language, with the evidence behind each
- A go / modify / stop recommendation – Stated plainly, with reasoning
- A draft analysis plan – If the answer is go: the recommended design, the estimator, the confounder set, the sensitivity analyses a reviewer will expect, and the reporting checklist that applies
- An alternative framing – If the answer is modify: what to change about the question so that it becomes answerable and publishable
- A quoted price – For the full study, if you want to proceed
Which Database?
The assessment covers any of the databases we work in, and part of its job is telling you which one fits. If you are not sure whether your question belongs in a population survey, a cancer registry, a trauma registry or a genetic causal design, that is a good reason to start here rather than guess.
- NHANES – nationally representative prevalence and exposure-outcome associations
- SEER – cancer survival, incidence trends and disparities
- NTDB / TQP – risk-adjusted trauma outcomes across centres
- Mendelian randomization – causal inference from public GWAS summary statistics
- Extended and multi-database – anything spanning more than one source
Who This Is For
- Researchers with an idea and no certainty that the data will support it
- Anyone about to commit months of their own time to a secondary-data analysis
- Authors whose previous submission was desk-rejected and who want to know whether the problem was the execution or the question itself
- Supervisors deciding whether a project is a sensible thesis chapter for a student
What Is Not Included
This is an assessment, not an analysis. We do not run the study, produce results, or write a manuscript at this stage. We do not obtain restricted data. The report is an honest professional opinion about whether the study is worth doing, not a guarantee that a study we approve will be accepted for publication, because no one can offer that.
Timeline
Standard delivery is 5 business days from receipt of your question and any background you want us to read.
Common Questions
What if you tell me not to proceed? Then you have the report explaining why, and you have not spent several thousand dollars and several months finding out the hard way. In our experience this is the most valuable outcome the assessment produces, even though it is the one nobody wants.
Is the credit really full? Yes. Commission any study in this category within six months and the $450 comes off the price.
What do you need from me? Your research question, the population and outcome you care about, your target journal if you have one, and anything you have already written or tried.
Can you assess a question in a database you do not list? Often yes. Ask. If it is outside what we can do well, we will say so rather than take the fee.
Have a Question First?
If you are not sure this is the right fit for your research question, ask before you buy. Send it below and a senior analyst replies within one business day. There is no obligation, and if a different product suits you better, or if the honest answer is that we cannot help, we will say so.
