At a time when private companies can mine online user data for new, sophisticated insights about their customers, public-sector agencies — particularly those charged with serving clients with low incomes and some of the most urgent needs — are struggling to keep up with their own data practices. Although public agencies collect reams of valuable information that could be used to improve residents’ health and well-being, they rarely have the ability to study, interpret, and use the data the same way many companies can.

About six years ago, the federal government funded a study to understand what is holding back state agencies in health and human services when it comes to collecting reliable data and using them to both improve the performance of agencies and the welfare of residents.

On this week's episode of On the Evidence, our guest is Beth Weigensberg, a senior researcher at Mathematica who helped conduct the research for that federal study and co-authored an article based on the study's findings that recently won an award from the Public Administration Review, a top-rated, peer-reviewed academic journal about government.

We’ll talk about the article, but also about what’s changed in the field since that research and where state agencies might go next in terms of handling and using administrative data.

We also have a condensed Q&A version of the conversation available here: https://mathematica-mpr.com/commentary/siloed-incomplete-and-neglected-the-trouble-with-state-administrative-data-and-what-to-do-about-it