New ways to analyse data from social agencies

AUT Economics Professor, Rhema Vaithianathan discusses the revolutionary ways data from social agencies is being used by academic researchers. For the first time, almost all the information on people that is gathered by social agencies, including the education and health systems - is being made available to academic researchers. The data is anonymised, but allows for cross referencing across different agencies. Professor Vaithianathan says specialists like herself are best placed to analyse this information to assess whether different programmes are working, and what the gaps are in terms of those most in need.