FSSA Data & Analytics
Overview
The vision for FSSA’s data strategy is to enable data-informed strategic and operational decision-making in working to improve the health and well-being of Hoosiers. To that end, it is necessary to efficiently deliver innovative, high-quality data solutions that seamlessly connect stakeholders to actionable insights, improving FSSA’s policies and programs.
Image Credit: Onebridge BI and Data Analytics
Evidence & research at FSSA
WISE Indiana is a state-university partnership between the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration and the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. WISE stands for “Well-being Informed by Science and Evidence in Indiana.” WISE Indiana engages nationally recognized academic experts from throughout Indiana to evaluate and inform Indiana’s health and human services practices, programs and policies.
You can read more about WISE Indiana in this press release or on the partnership’s home page maintained by Indiana CTSI.
Publicly available data
In 2018, FSSA partnered with the Indiana Management Performance Hub to create Indiana’s first open data hub, which houses publicly available datasets in an open-source format. FSSA continues to partner with MPH to publish commonly requested de-identified and aggregated data sets on Indiana’s Data Hub (https://hub.mph.in.gov/).
Before submitting a data request to FSSA, please explore existing data sets on the State Data Hub.
Requesting FSSA data
FSSA is home to a vast amount of data. In an era where the amount of data is ever increasing, it becomes more and more challenging to effectively harness the value of data for decision-making. There are a couple of different pathways to requesting data from FSSA, which depend primarily on the type of data requests being pursued.
- Access to Public Records Act (APRA) – I.C. 5-14-3, provides that any record that is created, received, retained, maintained or filed by or with a public agency is a "public record." This includes records created in the form of paper, paper substitutes, photographic media, chemically based media, magnetic or machine readable media, electronically stored data, or any other material. If you believe your request falls under the Indiana's Access to Public Records Act, please contact fssa.APRA@fssa.in.gov in order to submit your request for records.
- Research – is a systematic investigation to develop or contribute to generalized knowledge about public health, including behavioral and social-sciences research. This definition includes basic and applied research and product development. (See 42 CFR 403.902)
- Non-research – For example, monitoring to track program implementation progress through periodic data collection with the goal to provide early indications of progress or evaluations to determine effectiveness of a specific program or model and understand why a program may or may not be working, with the goal of improving programs.