SUNY's State Capacity Study focuses on governance
Report of the Advisory Panel on Research Uses of
Administrative Data to be issued this fall
State
Update:
Ohio works first
The JCPR website has been closed. Information from the website can now be found at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University and the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago.
In this issue of Poverty Research News we explore the research uses of administrative data. The use of administrative data for research, especially for program evaluations, is hardly a new phenomenon. Nevertheless, the increasing turn to outcomes-based accountability as the mode of agency management in many states, the legislatively mandated research component of some new state welfare laws, and the opportunity created by devolution for researchers to study different approaches to reducing welfare dependence, have combined to create an unprecedented interest in this source of information about poor and disadvantaged populations.
Article #1Evaluating welfare-to-work programs with administrative data
by Stephen Freedman
Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (mdrc) has used administrative records for research from nearly 40 states for evaluations of welfare-to-work programs. Based on his direct experience with administrative records systems for 10 states during the 12 years he has worked at mdrc. Freedman offers his perspective on how to divide the process into stages of activity, the potential problems that arise in each stage, and the hard decisions that will be required of the researcher who wants to get the optimal use out of this data.
Article #2Working with administrative data: Lessons from the field
by Catherine E. Born
As a researcher who has performed state-level welfare research for nearly 20 years, Born offers lessons about the use of administrative data, which public university-based researchers may especially want to consider. The value of these data for research can only increase in the current environment. At the same time, researchersÕ raging enthusiasm for administrative data should be tempered with realistic appreciation of just what is involved in such work. There is both more and less to this source of data than meets the eye.
Article #3Using administrative data to perform policy-relevant research
by Robert Goerge
Administrative data possess unique strengths for getting at particular research questions. Goerge shares the findings of two studies of the Chapin Hall Center for Children, a 1990 study of service population dynamics in Illinois (repeated in 1995) and a study of children whose first abuse or neglect report occurred before age five, providing illustrative examples of what administrative data have the potential to tell us when they are reliably linked.
Article #4Evaluating state policy: The effective use of administrative data
The first Poverty Research Conference hosted by the Poverty Center on June 16-17, attended by over 100 researchers and state administrators, tackled a leading issue in the area of poverty research: how can data that are routinely gathered from state administrative sources be utilized for policy-relevant research purposes? The opening session featured perspective from leaders in developing high quality administrative data sources for their states or research organizations. The conference continued with the presentation and discussion of nine papers that utilized administrative data in evaluating aspects of various state social policies.