Evidence-based policymaking

Evidence-based policy is a term often applied in multiple fields of public policy to refer to situations whereby policy decisions are informed by rigorously established objective evidence. Underlying many of the calls for 'evidence based policy' is often a (stated or unstated) concern with fidelity to scientific good practice, reflecting the belief that social goals are best served when scientific evidence is used rigorously and comprehensively to inform decisions, rather than in a piecemeal, manipulated, or cherry-picked manner. Conceptually the term has been seen as an extension of the idea of evidence-based medicine to all areas of public policy. There is, however, debate about the usefulness or applicability of the term given some of the key differences between clinical decision making and public policy making. Policy making is decidedly political because it involves choices between multiple competing social concerns; which is different to clinical decision making where there is typically agreement on the goal by all parties involved (i.e. reduction of patient morbidity/mortality). The lack of an agreed set of goals in most policy decisions means that there are likely to be multiple bodies of evidence relevant to policy debates, speaking to different social concerns, which policy makers must consider and value. Thus the idea that there can be a single 'evidence based' choice for policy makers does not hold for all but the most simple technical exercises.

Some have promoted particular types of evidence as 'best' for policy makers to consider, including scientifically rigorous evaluation studies such as randomized controlled trials to identify programs and practices capable of improving policy-relevant outcomes. However, some areas of policy-relevant knowledge are not well served by quantitative research, leading to debate about the methods and instruments that are considered critical for the collection of relevant evidence. For instance, policies that are concerned with human rights, public acceptability, or social justice may require other evidence than what randomized trials provide, or may require moral philosophical reasoning in addition to considerations of evidence of intervention effect (which randomised trials are principally designed to provide ). Good data, analytical skills and political support to the use of scientific information, as such, are typically seen as the important elements of an evidence-based approach.

Although evidence-based policy can be traced as far back as the fourteenth century, it was more recently popularized by the Blair Government in the United Kingdom. The Blair Government said they wanted to end the ideological led-based decision making for policy making. For example, a UK Government white paper published in 1999 ("Modernising Government") noted that Government must "produce policies that really deal with problems, that are forward-looking and shaped by evidence rather than a response to short-term pressures; that tackle causes not symptoms".

...
Wikipedia