On the Evidence

On the five-year anniversary of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast, we’re proud to feature an interview with Robert Santos, the director of the U.S. Census Bureau. Santos, the first Latino and the second person of color to lead the agency, joined Mathematica in January for a wide-ranging conversation that covered the following topics: • changing Latinx/Hispanic population trends in the United S...

This episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast explores lessons from Maryland, with glimpses from Vermont and Pennsylvania, that could help other states decide whether and how to adopt hospital global budgeting. The guests for this episode are Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, who was the secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene when the state adopted hospital global budgeting...

Every year, early-career scholars join Mathematica for a summer to work on independent research related to improving public well-being. As prospective applicants prepare to apply by the Feb. 29 deadline for the 2024 Summer Fellowship program, Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast spoke with last year’s fellows (Laurin Bixby, Carla Wellborn, and Luis Carlos Carvajal-Osorio) about what is at stake i...

For the final episode of 2023, Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast asked friends of the show to send short voice notes about important developments in evidence and well-being this year that will continue to matter in 2024. More than a dozen listeners and former guests responded to our call, highlighting significant milestones in health care, early childhood education, economic opportunity, clima...

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, inconsistent data collection and reporting made it difficult for U.S. public health agencies to respond to the disease's inequitable impacts. Demographic and socioeconomic factors, such as age, race, ethnicity, gender, income, and disability status, were particularly challenging to capture. The same data issues would later impede agencies’ ability to prioritize vacc...

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, inconsistent data collection and reporting made it difficult for U.S. public health agencies to respond to the disease's inequitable impacts. Demographic and socioeconomic factors, such as age, race, ethnicity, gender, income, and disability status, were particularly challenging to capture. The same data issues would later impede agencies’ ability to prioritize vacc...

In September 2023, Mathematica and Congressman Don Beyer’s office hosted an event on Capitol Hill to discuss artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications for health equity. This episode of On the Evidence features audio from the September event, anchored by Victoria Knight, a health care policy reporter for Axios, who interviewed Congressman Beyer and moderated a subsequent panel with Ellie G...

The latest episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast features Elizabeth Linos, the 23rd recipient of the David N. Kershaw Award and Prize. Linos is a public management scholar and behavioral scientist who studies, designs, and tests innovations in how government works. On the episode, Linos talks about what public sector workers and public policy researchers can learn from each other, how s...

Jennifer Pahlka served as the U.S. deputy chief technology officer under President Barack Obama and founded Code for America, a nonprofit that works to improve government digital services. In her new book, "Recoding America: Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better," Pahlka takes us beyond the basics to explore why policy implementation goes wrong and what we can do to...

Teacher recruitment and retention challenges have increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. But even before that, students of diverse backgrounds have historically not seen themselves reflected in the adults in their classrooms and schools. Why does this matter? Students of color do better in school when they have teachers who share similar identities. For example, Black students with at...

For anyone looking to understand Earth’s climate history and the unfolding climate crisis, Michael Mann has got you covered. Mann is the Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media. He has authored numerous books, including The New Climate War a...

From helping lead implementation of the Evidence Act to providing technical assistance on activities and initiatives, the Evidence Team at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is on the frontlines of evidence building and use across the federal government. Led by Diana Epstein (Team Lead), Erica Zielewski (Senior Evidence Analyst), Danielle Berman (Senior Evidence Analyst), and Erika Liliedah...

Gayle Smith, CEO of the ONE Campaign, served in many leadership roles in the federal government as a staunch advocate for evidence-based decision making. As Coordinator for Global COVID Response and Health Security at the U.S. Department of State in 2021, Smith led the U.S. effort to end the global pandemic, helping the Biden-Harris Administration map out a response, identify spikes, and target vu...

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated pre-existing inequities that changed how individuals engage with pre-K programs, schools, colleges, employers, and the world at large. Early evidence suggests the pandemic took a toll on student learning, educational attainment, employment, and physical and mental well-being, especially in communities of color and communities experiencing poverty. In recognition o...

In this special feature, On the Evidence host J.B. Wogan reflects on the first 100 episodes of the Mathematica podcast, and retraces some of the steps taken in the almost five years since the series launched in early 2019. Learn more, listen, and subscribe: https://mathematica.org/ontheevidence

In May 2023, Mathematica hosted a convening on Capitol Hill about embedding evidence in federal decision making, with a focus on the legacy of the nearly five-year-old Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, also known as the Evidence Act. One of the attendees that day was Robert Shea, an expert on performance improvement in government who served on the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Evide...

Leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, only about one in every seven students served by the National School Lunch Program also participated in free summer meals programs provided by the federal Food and Nutrition Service. The low ratio of students accessing meals in the summer compared to the school year has been dubbed the “summer food gap.” Policymakers and anti-hunger advocates have long worried...

This episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast focuses on how research informs funding strategies to tackle an urgent social challenge. A couple of years ago, Mathematica reviewed evidence from across the world on whether education programs can prevent or mitigate violence and crime. USAID commissioned the report to help develop effective strategies for leveraging the education sector to ad...

In late May 2023, Mathematica coordinated with Congressman Derek Kilmer’s office to host a discussion on Capitol Hill about the impact of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (Evidence Act) and how to further embed the use of data and evidence in federal decision making. This episode of On the Evidence features edited audio from the event with remarks from Kilmer and his House colle...

The fragmentation of outpatient health care drives up the cost of care and worsens the quality of care that patients receive, posing a risk to patients’ health. On this episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast, guests James Lee of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, Knitasha Washington of ATW Health Solutions, Bob Phillips of the Center for Professionalism and Value in Health Ca...

The 95th episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast features author Tina Rosenberg discussing the role of data and other evidence in supporting solutions journalism. In 2013, Rosenberg co-founded the Solutions Journalism Network, which challenges journalists to show whether a solution they are covering is effective using available data or qualitative results. The episode explores the nature...

Episode 94 of On the Evidence is the second installment in a new occasional series on the show called Evidence in Government, where guests talk about new developments in the halls of government and the role that evidence can or should play in decisions that could improve people’s lives. On this episode, Christina Ciocca Eller talks about a recent push at the White House to accelerate the cominglin...

On this episode, we discuss the Family First Prevention Services Act in the context of one state’s efforts to build evidence for a parent education program thought to prevent child abuse and neglect. Katherine Guffey, Meg Dygert, and Allon Kalisher discuss a parent education program in Arizona that Mathematica evaluated, the Family First law, and the long-term implications of the law’s provisions...

In the president’s proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year, the Biden White House outlines a spending plan that would expand health care insurance coverage for more Americans, extend free school meals to more children, and provide financial assistance for child care to more families. The budget includes more than a dozen references to evidence and calls for taking evidence-based or evidence-infor...

Every year, Mathematica publishes dozens of new papers and reports, some of which surface fresh insights about how public agencies and private organizations can be more effective at improving public well-being. For the 91st episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast, we’re launching an occasional series focused on examples of solutions that recent research suggests are effective. All three s...