Hi Lizka – thank you for your thoughtful question!
Our direct engagement with policymakers is somewhat limited, but we do have occasional opportunities to present our work to large international organizations like the UN and WHO. And we know from testimonies and occasional public reports that OWID is also considered very helpful by policymakers at the national level. We know that policymakers, or their aides, value the clarity and conciseness of our work. OWID’s approach allows them to comprehend the broader picture quickly, which we believe is mainly due to what we now label as “key insights”. This overview provides an immediate understanding of a topic without diving into specifics.
When a more detailed analysis is necessary, our platform allows policymakers to drill down into the data, explore specific time series, and interpret detailed data points. This functionality is beneficial when policymakers want to understand what the data implies, or perhaps bring charts to a meeting, without necessarily jumping to conclusions.
As for bottlenecks in evidence-based policy similar to those in forecasting, we’ve identified “technical text” as a significant challenge. By technical text, we mean all the information that needs to be presented alongside a chart to make sense, be accurately understood, and be placed into a broader context. This could mean explaining key terms, linking to in-depth articles, discussing the data source, the data’s age, and its limitations, etc. We strongly believe that many of our charts could be misunderstood or even misleading without this accompanying text. It’s in this space that we feel we bring added value, in contrast to chart-catalog websites like Statista or, to some extent, Wikipedia, which provide the raw data but often lack in-depth explanations.
So, while data is indeed powerful, it’s the contextual, nuanced information that often determines the effectiveness of data-based approaches in policymaking.
Hi Lizka – thank you for your thoughtful question!
Our direct engagement with policymakers is somewhat limited, but we do have occasional opportunities to present our work to large international organizations like the UN and WHO. And we know from testimonies and occasional public reports that OWID is also considered very helpful by policymakers at the national level. We know that policymakers, or their aides, value the clarity and conciseness of our work. OWID’s approach allows them to comprehend the broader picture quickly, which we believe is mainly due to what we now label as “key insights”. This overview provides an immediate understanding of a topic without diving into specifics.
When a more detailed analysis is necessary, our platform allows policymakers to drill down into the data, explore specific time series, and interpret detailed data points. This functionality is beneficial when policymakers want to understand what the data implies, or perhaps bring charts to a meeting, without necessarily jumping to conclusions.
As for bottlenecks in evidence-based policy similar to those in forecasting, we’ve identified “technical text” as a significant challenge. By technical text, we mean all the information that needs to be presented alongside a chart to make sense, be accurately understood, and be placed into a broader context. This could mean explaining key terms, linking to in-depth articles, discussing the data source, the data’s age, and its limitations, etc. We strongly believe that many of our charts could be misunderstood or even misleading without this accompanying text. It’s in this space that we feel we bring added value, in contrast to chart-catalog websites like Statista or, to some extent, Wikipedia, which provide the raw data but often lack in-depth explanations.
So, while data is indeed powerful, it’s the contextual, nuanced information that often determines the effectiveness of data-based approaches in policymaking.