Evidence-based policy-making and the role of statistics and information

The ultimate goals of policy-making would not be possible by use of the methods such as surveys. Evidence-based policy-making is a new approach in the public policy which has increased in many countries. Evidence-based policy-making is based on the assumption that decisions should be based on available evidence and rational analysis in addition to the judgments and opinions. one of the important evidence is statistics. The accuracy statistics can promote the accuracy, quality and capacity of policy. According to the importance of the statistics for the evidence-based policy-making, this paper is seeking to examine the importance of the statistics for evidence-based policy-making and tiring to show that the correct and efficient use of statistics leads to better policy. This paper uses the mixed method for this purpose. The mixed method approach used in this paper is the sequential exploratory design that the qualitative data followed by the quantitative data are collected and analysed. First, the comprehensive process framework for evidence-based policy-making is developed in the qualitative part by using meta-synthesis. Second, in the quantitative part, binomial test is used to validation of the developed framework. The data collection tool is a questionnaire and has been completed by 15 experts in the field of policy-making. Finally, the paper examines the role of information and statistics in the steps of proposed framework.