Big data: strategic assets: the information states collect can be a force for creating good policy.

• Author: Hiltz, Allison
• Position: BUDGETS - Column

Your phone dings. You pick it up, knowing the familiar sound indicates a new email because you customized the settings yourself. You swipe to open the message and see it's from a constituent, so you quickly respond. But before you close out, you toggle over to view your personal emails. They're all in the same app, after all.

It wasn't so long ago, in the days before smartphones, that you had to log in to and out of individual email accounts and memorize passwords. The accounts were stored separately, requiring independent access. But technology, aided by software development, brought it all together, streamlining your email and, ultimately, your life.

It is a similar integration and improved efficiency that many argue are needed in state governments, particularly when it comes to data.

The Importance of Data

It's no secret that data can help lawmakers improve existing programs and allocate resources. High school graduation rates shape education policies, financial data inform budget decisions and usage statistics guide the delivery of public services. The list goes on.

Used properly, data can improve the effectiveness of state government. Washington's Department of Social and Health Services, for example, used state Medicaid data to target women's tobacco use because it showed that pregnant women enrolled in the program had a higher prevalence of smoking. The result? Healthier mothers and children.

The biggest challenge for many states is not collecting data but figuring out how to use it. Preliminary research by The Pew Charitable Trust's Data as a Strategic Asset initiative found that, while all 50 states incorporate data to some extent to inform decision-making, they all face similar obstacles, including silos, data quality, and security and privacy concerns.

The Challenge of Sharing Silos

Many state government agencies across the country have access only to their own electronic files, creating data "silos"--troves of information that cannot be shared easily across agencies. The left hand sometimes doesn't know what the right hand is doing, creating gaps in services when several agencies are involved in implementing a policy.

Reducing teen pregnancy, for example, might involve the departments of education, health and human services, and child welfare. Similarly, crime prevention might include all those departments, along with mental health and welfare programs. The challenge, then, is to knock the silos down, integrate the data and deliver more efficient, effective programs.

Why are the silos so hard to break? First, building and sustaining the human and technical capacity to support data sharing and analysis often requires funding investments.

Second, rules often prevent sharing data, such as tax and employment records, among agencies. Adopting collaborative approaches that bring together people from different agencies--and the agencies themselves--to share and integrate data...