Record linkage from welfare administrative systems was recognized as a powerful tool to understand long-standing needs and for evidence-based policy design. At the same time, the utilization of big-data, and LAD, is potentially a controversial political topic since it involves monitoring individuals' behavior and often transferring data outside government systems.
Dr. Talia Meital Schwartz-Tayri, PhD
Dr. Couty (Yekutiel) Sabah, PhD
Professor Neil Gilbert, the Milton and Gertrude Chernin Professor of Social Welfare and Social Services, University of California, Berkeley, School of Social Welfare
Findings revealed that the mechanism of LAD utilization in national program evaluation comprises of multiple power relations between four types of policy actors and entrepreneurs at the national, local, and street-level bureaucracy; and uncovered the barriers and facilitators that led to the gaps between the potential to the actual use of LAD.
Record linkage from welfare administrative systems was recognized as a powerful tool to understand long-standing needs and for evidence-based policy design. At the same time, the utilization of big-data, and LAD, is potentially a controversial political topic since it involves monitoring individuals' behavior and often transferring data outside government systems. This raises ethical dilemmas concerning privacy and data ownership.
LAD monitor front-line workers' decision making and services consumption, and therefore, equip evaluators with longitudinal data-sets, facilitate real time evaluation, and enhance the understanding on how interventions at the national and practice levels operate in achieving outcomes. Despite its recognized potential in informing policy making, the utilization of LAD in the field of social welfare is very modest, and is focused predominantly on child welfare. Few efforts have been made to harness LAD to evaluate national welfare programs for families.
Our research aimed to conceptualize a theoretical model to understand the process of LAD utilization for national welfare program evaluation, by applying Kingdon's (1995) multiple streams model, and by comparing the Californian and Israeli contexts due to their similarity in welfare regime and technological capacity, but difference in LAD utilization in the social welfare domain.
For more details:
Schwartz – Tayri, T. M., Sabah, Y., & Gilbert, N. (2020). Utilization of Linked Administrative Data (LAD) for Welfare Policy Evaluation: What Does It Take?, SSWR.
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