Informed Public Decision Making

The Bern?

The Donald?

The Hill?

The Cruzinator?

Perhaps you have a favorite; perhaps you have not yet decided.

The once-every-four-years politics as circus has revved up in spring 2016, with the media sometimes more focused on topics like Hillary’s email indiscretions and Donald’s portrayal of Ted’s wife than on the issues of substance that we as voters should seriously ponder.

The who certainly has a lot of importance at all levels of government. We should select competent public officials. But, in the long term, the how has significant importance as well. How do we determine the best course of action for a city, a state, a nation? How – by what means – do we establish wise policies that will enhance the quality of life for everyone in the most equitable ways?

At Wilder Research, we focus on the long term, seeking to improve the means – the how – by which public officials and the general public can make the best choices. We shed light on what programs work. We seek to understand social and economic trends and how they influence the well-being of residents of our communities. We assist others to build their capacity to effectively implement programs and to make policy and funding decisions that will move community trends in a positive direction. All of those activities take time. They don’t happen overnight.

Sound public decision making requires measured, careful combining of values with evidence. We at Wilder Research seek to collaborate with community leaders of all types, bringing relevant, trustable, non-partisan evidence into their deliberations.

These examples demonstrate how we’ve informed decision making at local and state levels: 

• As part of the Minnesota Strengthening Families Affected by Incarceration Collaborative, Wilder Research analyzed the impacts of parental incarceration upon young people and held forums to bring that information to the forefront. Now, state agencies use the research findings to educate the legislature. 

• A Health Impact Assessment, done in collaboration with the Public Health Law Center, informed the revision of the Minnesota Department of Education’s Guide for Planning School Construction Projects. Historically, the guide has offered a compendium of design standards and state mandates for school districts doing new school construction or renovation. The HIA illuminated the many ways that school location and design can optimize student health. So far, at least one superintendent has used the HIA report to inform facility audits.

• Our study of the return on investment in Supportive Housing demonstrated returns of $1.44 for every public dollar invested. Its very compelling findings have figured in multiple funding and legislative proposals. An additional study on this topic will come out soon. 

• Minnesota Early Childhood Risk and Reach – in which we assembled, in partnership with the University of Minnesota and state agencies, key indicators of early childhood development in Minnesota – showed that Ramsey County is a high-risk county, resembling many greater Minnesota counties more than other metro counties. The project offers evidence that developmental risk levels will likely rise without concerted effort to rectify income and racial disparities. 

• Regarding disparities, the disparities section on Minnesota Compass, along with other work at Wilder Research, has added to the rationale for the Governor’s recently-announced, $100 million dollar initiative to reverse racial disparities. 

• Our research on the Safe Harbor Law and the No Wrong Door model raised awareness about sex trafficking in Minnesota. The Safe Harbor Law legally redefined prostituted Minnesota girls under 18 as crime victims. The study is now being used by government and non-profit agencies statewide to improve services and to educate and mobilize the public to end the prostitution of Minnesota girls. 

• Our monitoring of mental health needs and patient flow through the health care system in the East Metro produced information used to support increased access to, and payment for, Crisis Stabilization Services, including the development of a mental health urgent care facility in Ramsey County; we expect further use of this ongoing study. 

• Speaking for Ourselves, an innovative study of immigrants in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region, carried out with representatives of those communities, has shed new light on mental health (policies that improve access to culturally appropriate behavioral health services), health (dedicating resources focused on healthy eating, physical activity, and tobacco/alcohol/drugs for immigrant and refugee communities), education (improving access to culturally appropriate early childhood education, as well as a pipeline for immigrant and refugee students in the Twin Cities to receive teacher education so they can work in and diversify the Twin Cities teaching force). 

• The State of the Infrastructure survey, in the field again this year for MnDOT and MN2050, examines whether asset management will most efficiently and effectively care for Minnesota’s infrastructure assets. 

In these efforts and more, we hope to enable public officials and other community leaders to apply the best possible knowledge to their decisions, to use data effectively, to learn from experience, and to continually grow in their ability to govern wisely. We don’t subscribe to a narrow partisan creed. You won’t find us collaborating with Super PACs or producing soundbites for shock value. We prize the strategy we pursue – seeking to provide compelling rationales and evidence for public decision making that benefits everyone.