Research, evaluation, and methodology

Studying what works, in the populations most often missed.

A clinician-led research and evaluation practice for organizations doing serious work in mental health, behavioral science, and the next generation of clinical trials. Based in New York. Working globally.

Principal Ahmed Alif, LCSW · PhD candidate, NYU

Established Active since 2018

Sector Behavioral health · Clinical research

Position

Most of the populations that mental health research needs, mental health research misses.

Clinical trials, behavioral interventions, and digital mental health products are routinely developed and validated on demographics that do not reflect the populations they will eventually serve. Underrepresentation produces measurement tools that miss the mark in real-world deployment, recruitment shortfalls that delay trials by months, and outcome data that does not generalize.

We help organizations close that gap. The work is methodological, clinical, and culturally specific. We design research that holds together when it leaves the laboratory and meets the people it was supposed to be about.

Our practice draws on a decade of direct clinical work with immigrant, refugee, and other underrepresented communities, an active psychometric evaluation practice in six languages, a doctoral research base at NYU Silver, and adjunct teaching appointments in research methodology at NYU and Fordham. The methodology is rigorous. The cultural fluency is structural. The two are not separable, and that is the point.

Capabilities

A defined practice in research, evaluation, and validation.

Each engagement is structured around the specific question being asked. The categories below are the shape of what we do; the form of each engagement is worked out in conversation.

Research Design & Methodology

Protocol development for trials in behavioral health, mental health, and digital therapeutics. Mixed-methods designs that pair quantitative endpoints with qualitative depth. IRB-grade documentation, statistical analysis planning, pre-registration, and the discipline of building a study that survives peer review.

Adjacent terms: clinical trial design, protocol development, IRB compliance, mixed-methods research, randomized controlled trials

Program Evaluation

Independent evaluation of behavioral health programs, public health initiatives, and digital interventions. Pre/post designs, implementation evaluation, theory of change articulation, and outcome measurement structured for grant reporting and policy translation.

Adjacent terms: program evaluation methodology, implementation science, theory of change, evaluation for behavioral health

Psychometric Validation

Validation studies for clinical and screening instruments in populations they were not originally normed on. Cross-cultural adaptation of patient-reported outcomes. Reliability, validity, measurement invariance, and the methodological work of making an instrument actually mean the same thing across languages and cultures.

Adjacent terms: psychometric validation, cross-cultural adaptation, PRO development, measurement invariance, ADOS-2 DIVA-5 PHQ-9 GAD-7

Multilingual Recruitment

Recruitment strategy and execution for clinical trials and research studies in populations where standard recruitment methods do not produce representative samples. Drawing on an active clinical practice with multilingual reach and established community partnerships.

Adjacent terms: clinical trial recruitment, diverse trial enrollment, underrepresented populations, multilingual research, equity in clinical research

Real-World Evidence

Real-world evidence generation in immigrant, refugee, and underserved populations. Observational study design, EHR-linked outcomes, naturalistic data capture, and the methodology of generating evidence in contexts where traditional clinical-trial designs are not feasible or appropriate.

Adjacent terms: real-world evidence, RWE, observational studies, naturalistic data, post-market surveillance, registry studies

Cultural Adaptation

Translation and cultural adaptation of clinical instruments, screening tools, consent materials, and patient-facing content. Not literal translation: the work of preserving construct validity across languages, dialects, and cultural framings.

Adjacent terms: cultural adaptation, translation methodology, cross-cultural research, health communication, plain language

AI & Digital MH Research Ethics

Methodological and ethical consultation on AI-augmented mental health interventions, digital therapeutics, and chatbot-based clinical tools. Safety architecture, consent design, equity in algorithmic systems, and the kind of independent scrutiny that responsible deployment requires.

Adjacent terms: AI mental health, digital therapeutics, algorithmic ethics, chatbot research, responsible AI, FDA software as medical device

Expert Consultation

Advisory engagements for pharmaceutical sponsors, foundations, academic medical centers, and investors on research strategy in behavioral health and mental health domains. Specific scope and structure determined per engagement.

Adjacent terms: research consulting, clinical advisory, scientific consultation, expert witness, methods consultation

Approach

A clinical practice that generates the research it conducts.

Most research consultancies sit downstream of clinical reality, working from datasets and protocols at one remove. This practice runs the other way: clinical work generates the research questions, the populations, and the cultural fluency that the methodology then operationalizes.

Clinical anchoring

A staff of more than sixteen multilingual clinicians treating across eight languages, providing an authentic substrate of clinical and community knowledge that desk-research consultancies cannot replicate.

Community standing

Active community partnerships built over a decade. Trust in immigrant, refugee, and faith communities is earned slowly and cannot be purchased. Where it matters most, we already have it.

Academic rigor

NYU Silver doctoral training, adjunct faculty appointments, peer-reviewed publication track, and active membership in the Society for Asylum Medicine and the Physicians for Human Rights Asylum Network.

Multidisciplinary network

A clinical and consulting network spanning psychology, social work, psychiatry, internal medicine, faith-based practice, and digital health methodology. Engagements are staffed to the question, not to a billable template.

A working note

The most expensive failures in mental health research are not the trials that fail to enroll. They are the trials that do enroll — but enroll the wrong populations, validate the wrong instruments, and produce data that does not generalize to the people the product will eventually be sold to.

That is the work we do: research that holds together when it leaves the laboratory.

Ahmed Alif

LCSW · PhD candidate, NYU Silver School of Social Work

Partners

We work with organizations doing serious work.

Engagements vary in scale, scope, and confidentiality. The categories below describe the types of partners we have worked with and continue to work with.

Industry

Pharmaceutical & biotech

Trial design, recruitment strategy, real-world evidence collection, and PRO adaptation in underrepresented populations. Pre-IND through Phase 4.

Philanthropy

Foundations & family offices

Program evaluation, due diligence on funded interventions, equity-criteria assessment, and methodology consultation for grant-funded research.

Academic

Academic medical centers

Methodological collaboration, recruitment in hard-to-reach populations, qualitative research support, and cultural adaptation of validated instruments.

Government

Federal & agency partners

Consultation on protocol development for grant-funded research, evaluation of agency programs, and methodological review of equity-focused initiatives.

Capital

Investors & strategics

Independent scientific and methodological review of behavioral health and mental health investments, due diligence on digital therapeutic claims, and post-acquisition advisory.

Healthtech

Digital therapeutics & AI

Research ethics, validation methodology, and equity review for AI-augmented mental health tools, digital therapeutics, and chatbot-based interventions.

If the work we describe sounds adjacent to something you are building, we would be glad to hear from you.

Engagements vary in scope and structure. There is no standard scope and no standard price; both depend on what the work requires. Direct contact below.

Office 315 Fifth Avenue, Suite 701, New York Telephone 347 · 421 · 8024 Correspondence info@capacitybuildingnyc.com

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