On the Evidence

Cecilia Rouse is the former dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the current president of the Brookings Institution. For the first two years of the Biden administration, she was the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers—the first Black American to chair the council in its 75-year history. In August, she joined Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast for a conversation with Mathematica’s President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Decker about leadership, the use of evidence in public policy, and the role of research organizations in improving public well-being.

During the interview, Rouse talks about what she learned from her government posts about the role of research in informing policy decisions, how she thinks about the role of academic institutions in conducting policy research and training future public servants, how economics and related professions are doing at diversifying their workforces, and what she has learned about leadership.

A full transcript of the episode is available at https://mathematica.org/blogs/cecilia-rouse-on-the-use-of-evidence-in-public-policy

Listen to Rouse’s January 2024 interview with the Brookings Institution’s podcast, The Current, which posted shortly after she became the Brookings president: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/meet-cecilia-rouse-new-brookings-president/

Listen to Paul Decker’s previous interviews about leadership and evidence-based decision making: https://staginginter.mathematica.net/search#q=paul%20decker&sort=relevancy&f:BlogSeries=%5BOn%20The%20Evidence%2DPodcast%5D&f:BlogSeries:operator=and

Thirty years ago, President Bill Clinton signed bipartisan legislation creating what is now known as AmeriCorps, a federal agency for national service and volunteerism. Since then, the agency estimates that more than 1.3 million AmeriCorps members and hundreds of thousands more AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers have provided billions of hours of service across each of the 50 states and U.S. territories.

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of AmeriCorps, On the Evidence hosted a discussion about the role of data and research in helping AmeriCorps and its grantees deliver on their respective missions. The episode features Dr. Mary Hyde of AmeriCorps, Scott Richman of Mathematica, and Stephanie Garippa and Diana Gioia of Maggie’s Place, an AmeriCorps grantee.

On the episode, they discuss the important but complex task of measuring the impact of AmeriCorps, given that it seeks to not only spur higher levels of civic engagement and national service, but to simultaneously help its service members, partnering organizations, the communities in which both operate, and society as a whole. They talk about the kinds of evidence that AmeriCorps and grantees like Maggie’s Place collect, how that evidence is used to drive impact, and how the role of evidence in guiding AmeriCorps’ work has evolved over time.

Read the 2023 AmeriCorps State of the Evidence Report: https://www.mathematica.org/publications/americorps-2023-state-of-the-evidence-report

Find the full transcript for the episode at https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/how-americorps-uses-data-to-support-communities-through-national-service-and-volunteerism

Twenty years ago, the U.S. Congress created a new federal agency that represented a bold experiment in international aid. That agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), strove to reduce global poverty through grant-making to low- and lower-middle-income countries that demonstrated a commitment to good governance, economic freedom, and investing in their citizens. Part of what made MCC distinct in the international development space was its evidence-based approach, which focused on evaluating impacts and fostering a culture of learning and accountability to improve the effectiveness of aid.

For this episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast, and in recognition of the agency’s 20th anniversary, Alicia Phillips Mandaville of MCC joins Jeff Bernson of Mathematica to discuss the agency’s past, present, and future. Among other topics, Phillips Mandaville and Bernson discuss how MCC approaches country ownership and locally led development, how the agency’s evidence-based approach to learning has evolved over time, and what MCC has learned about how to reduce poverty in developing countries.

A full transcript of the episode is available at mathematica.org/blogs/twenty-years-of-insights-from-the-millennium-challenge-corporation-on-reducing-poverty.

Visit MCC’s 20th anniversary page, which reflects further on the agency’s impacts over two decades: https://www.mcc.gov/about/priority/20th-anniversary/

Our guest for this episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast is Dr. Aaron Carroll, a pediatrician, health researcher, and science communicator who recently assumed the post of president and chief executive officer at AcademyHealth, the leading national organization for convening and sharing information across health services researchers, policymakers, and health care practitioners.

On the Evidence spoke with Carroll ahead of his organization’s Health Datapalooza conference in mid-September. This year, the event is focused on data-driven solutions that address critical public health challenges. The conference’s theme reflects a collaboration between AcademyHealth and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to facilitate greater coordination and learning across health care and public health data systems. Mathematica is a member organization of AcademyHealth and a sponsor of the 2024 Health Datapalooza.

In the episode, Carroll discusses what he has learned about effective science communication from blogging for The Incidental Economist, hosting the Healthcare Triage podcast, authoring several books, publishing research in peer-review journals, and contributing regularly to The New York Times.

The interview covers a range of other topics as well, including the implications of climate change and artificial intelligence on health care and health services research; the need for greater interoperability among health and social services data systems; and the value of solutions for addressing the social determinants of health.

Visit our website for a transcript of this episode: https://mathematica.org/blogs/aaron-carroll-on-the-future-of-health-services-research

Watch the Healthcare Triage series on health and climate change: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkfBg8ML-gInVPCl7zVMWvRX3SVwTRhgc

Read Carroll’s guest essay in The New York Times about lessons from other countries that could improve health care in the U.S.: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/opinion/health-care-reform.html

Learn more about Mathematica’s interdisciplinary climate practice: https://www.mathematica.org/sp/climate-change/climate-action

Read a blog series by Mathematica staff about improving the quality and usability of social determinants of health data: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/to-address-the-social-determinants-of-health-start-with-the-data

Listen to a podcast about a federally-funded initiative to improve the collection of information from patients about their health-related social needs: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/lessons-from-a-national-health-initiative-that-helps-address-social-needs

Learn more about Mathematica’s public health data modernization work, including recent projects for the Pew Charitable Trusts on public health data policies and practices in states, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on transforming public health data systems to advance equity, and operation of a Public Health Data Modernization Implementation Center for the CDC and Public Health Infrastructure Grant National Partners: https://www.mathematica.org/sp/public-health

Learn more about Mathematica’s Health Data Innovation Lab, which connects health care industry professionals with data scientists, social scientists, and technologists to address complex challenges within a health care organization or tackle broader issues related to fragmented care, social determinants of health, and health care inequality: https://staginginter.mathematica.net/sites/health-data-innovation-lab

In the United States, conversations about solutions to climate change often revolve around reducing fossil fuel emissions from human activities. But many believe regenerative agricultural practices and other nature-based solutions—which use soil and plants and try to either prevent or capture emissions—should complement policies and programs to reduce emissions from vehicles and power plants. As the nature-based climate solutions mature, public and private organizations that invest in them will need ways to measure their impact.

In an interview with Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast, Dr. Jenny Soong, a soil biogeochemist within Mathematica’s interdisciplinary climate practice, explains how better measurement, better data collection, and better web-based decision support tools could ensure the effective implementation of regenerative agriculture and other nature-based climate solutions.

Find a full transcript of the episode at mathematica.org/ontheevidence.

Learn more about Mathematica’s interdisciplinary climate practice: https://www.mathematica.org/sp/climate-change/climate-action

The latest episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast coincides with June 19, which is celebrated by many around the United States as Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in this country. Recently, one way staff at Mathematica have honored this important moment in U.S. history is by joining together in person and virtually on June 18th to read aloud and discuss a speech by Frederick Douglass titled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

Douglass gave the speech in front of a predominately white abolitionist audience about 11 years before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring more than three million enslaved people living in the Confederate states to be free. The speech focuses on the contradiction of celebrating liberty at a time when millions remained in slavery. It both celebrates the ideals of the country’s founding and laments how the country has fallen short of those ideals.

This episode of On the Evidence features an interview with Sheldon Bond, the deputy director of Mathematica’s labor and employment area, who also acts as a co-lead for the company’s Black Employee Resource Group. Mathematica’s Black and Disability employee resource groups work with the Princeton Public Library to organize the readings of Frederick Douglass’s speech.

The episode also features clips from last year’s Juneteenth event, with passages read by Mathematica’s Rachel Miller, Sarah Lieff, Gloria Jackson, Stacie Feldman, Rachael Jackson, A’lantra Wright, Kirsten Miller, Boyd Gilman, and Dawnavan Davis.

A full transcript from the episode is available here: mathematica.org/blogs/on-juneteenth-reflecting-on-our-collective-equity-journey

Read Sheldon Bond’s My Mathematica blog about how, as a natural introvert, he has learned to communicate, connect, and build relationships in the context of a growing company with an increasingly hybrid work culture: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/my-mathematica-sheldon-bond

Within the past few years, organizations that help improve public well-being by providing data-driven insights have witnessed significant changes. From a digital transformation hastened by big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to the globalization of evidence-based solutions for problems that transcend borders, changes in technology, society, and culture are challenging leaders to rethink how their organizations operate. On the latest episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast, NORC at the University of Chicago President and Chief Executive Officer Dan Gaylin joined Mathematica President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Decker for a wide-ranging discussion about leadership, AI, globalization, the COVID-19 pandemic, and advocating for the use of high-quality evidence without straying into activism.

Find a full transcript at mathematica.org/blogs/norc-and-mathematica-ceos-on-the-future-of-data-and-evidence

Read an article by Dan Gaylin on LinkedIn where he explains his philosophy around the importance of sharing research findings: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-silence-significance-case-sharing-your-research-dan-gaylin-d1cve/?trackingId=Mm6Fa4kN4WbH29J%2FQArQrg%3D%3D

Learn more about NORC’s AmeriSpeak Panel: https://amerispeak.norc.org/

Learn more about NORC’s 2020 Election Research Project for Facebook: https://www.norc.org/research/projects/2020-election-research-project.html

Learn more about NORC’s Advanced Data Solutions Center: https://www.norc.org/about/departments/advanced-data-solutions-center.html

Watch Decker’s interview with Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, which includes a discussion about the declining response rates in federal surveys and what they might mean for informing policy decisions: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/mark-zandi-chief-economist-of-moodys-analytics-on-data-driven-decisions-in-public-policy

Watch Decker’s interview with Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/the-partnership-for-public-services-max-stier-on-using-data-to-improve-the-government

This episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast features a discussion about how various parties within the health care ecosystem can responsibly use artificial intelligence (AI) to improve patient health. The conversation comes amid increasing interest in the applications of AI in daily life and one month after Mathematica announced the launch of its Health Data Innovation Lab, a digital operational hub for government agencies, foundations, medical centers, and other health organizations to collaborate with data scientists and health policy experts.

The episode draws from a recent webinar moderated by Noland Joiner, the chief technology officer of health care at Mathematica, with Ngan MacDonald and Ellie Graeden as guests. MacDonald is the director of health data innovations at Mathematica and Graeden is a partner and chief data scientist at Luminos.Law. She is also an adjunct research professor at Georgetown University.

A transcript of the episode is available here: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/improving-health-through-responsible-ai

Learn more about Mathematica’s Health Data Innovation Lab: https://www.mathematica.org/sites/health-data-innovation-lab

The latest episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast features Max Stier, the president and chief executive officer of the Partnership for Public Service. Stier discusses the central role that data and research play in supporting his organization’s mission to make the federal government more effective. The episode comes during Public Service Recognition Week (May 5–11), which is also when the partnership announces finalists for its Service to America Medals. These annual awards celebrate extraordinary leadership by career federal employees.

For the episode, Stier sits down with Mathematica President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Decker to talk about using data to improve government, enhancing data literacy among federal workers, measuring and rebuilding trust in government, the power of employee recognition, and more.

A full transcript of the episode is available at mathematica.org/blogs/the-partnership-for-public-services-max-stier-on-using-data-to-improve-the-government

See the list of 2024 finalists for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals: https://servicetoamericamedals.org/honorees/?_year=2024

Learn more about the Partnership’s Service to America Medals program: https://ourpublicservice.org/our-solutions/recognition/service-to-america-medals/

Learn more about the Partnership’s Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings: https://ourpublicservice.org/performance-measures/best-places-to-work-in-the-federal-government/

Explore data from the Partnership on Americans’ level of trust in the federal government: https://ourpublicservice.org/our-solutions/rebuilding-trust-in-government/dashboard/

In March, when the Biden administration released its budget request for fiscal year 2025, it not only offered a blueprint for the president’s policymaking agenda—it also provided the latest indication of how the White House and federal agencies are going beyond evidence generation to use evidence as a guide in making program investments that can improve Americans’ lives. For this episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast, Nichole Dunn, the vice president of federal policy at Results for America, joins the show to discuss evidence-based policy in the president’s budget as well as larger trends in federal and state funding of evidence-based initiatives and programs.

On the episode, Dunn speaks with Mike Burns, senior director of communications and public affairs at Mathematica, about American Rescue Plan spending, the growth of evidence clearinghouses, the increasing level of federal investment in program evaluation, the implications of the presidential election for federal investment in evidence-based policy, the implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, the recent formation of the bipartisan Congressional What Works Caucus, the Congressional Evidence-Based Policymaking Resolution, and the potential for evidence-based policy to bypass partisan gridlock in Washington.

A full transcript of the conversation is available at mathematica.org/blogs/evidence-based-policy-in-president-bidens-2025-budget

Read an op-ed by Michele Jolin, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Results for America, about how bipartisan elected leaders and career civil servants across the country who have been quietly transforming how governments invest taxpayer dollars to achieve better results: https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2024/03/from-minnesota-to-washington-d-c-a-better-way-to-deliver-results/

Read the research brief by Mathematica for Results for America, which shows how city governments with a history of prioritizing data-driven practices were more likely to use federal relief funds from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) to deepen their commitment to results-driven governance—with the goal of improving outcomes for residents through effective programs: https://mathematica.org/publications/unlocking-the-power-of-city-data

Watch a recording from the January 2024 virtual event hosted by Results for America to discuss the federal government’s progress in using evidence and data to get better results, which featured the release of a new report by Harvard University Professor Christina Ciocca Eller on federal evidence-based policymaking efforts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMYwG6P-1zI

Read the 2023 Invest in What Works State Standard of Excellence from Results for America, which showcases 194 efforts across 46 states to build and use evidence and data to improve residents’ lives: https://results4america.org/tools/2023-invest-in-what-works-state-standard-of-excellence/

Explore the ARP Data and Evidence Dashboard from Mathematica and Results for America, which highlights how state and local government leaders are investing one-time federal pandemic relief and economic recovery funds and using data and evidence to get better results: https://results4america.org/tools/arp-dashboard/