Center releases report on worldwide public policies

An extensive report recently released by the UCLA World Policy Analysis Center presents suggestions to improve the futures of children worldwide.

The center, which opened in January, published its inaugural report earlier this month, called “Changing Children’s Chances.” The report examines data from all 193 countries in the United Nations. It was co-written by Dr. Jody Heymann, the dean of UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health and founding director of the UCLA World Policy Analysis Center, and Kristen McNeill of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University in Canada.

The main issues discussed in the report include poverty and parental care. Each section takes the central problems with public policies worldwide surrounding an issue like education, and compares the prevalence of the problems among countries.

The report found that many countries especially lack support for secondary education, parents who live and work in impoverished areas, and child labor laws.

The central goal of the UCLA World Policy Analysis Center is to collect public policy data into a vast database that can then be pulled for reports such as “Changing Children’s Chances,” said Tina Assi, project manager at the UCLA World Policy Analysis Center. The center works with organizations such as the United Nations Children’s Fund, commonly known as UNICEF, to compile its reports.

“(We) make the data available to media … to academic groups to do research and academic institutions as well, so one of the challenges going forward is to translate the data into usable forms, acceptable forms for all of those audiences,” Assi said.

The report’s authors wanted to give the world’s citizens the chance to discover and defend their rights, McNeill said.

“(Citizens are) able to sort of hold their employers or governments accountable for what they’re legally entitled to,” McNeill said. “Or, if they’re not legally entitled to a particular thing … that’s able to inform advocacy to push for greater policy change in areas that are critical for children, for families and for future generations.”

To compile the report, the analysts looked at primary sources, such as labor and social security legislation, constitutional texts and educational policies, said Amy Raub, a principal research analyst for Heymann. Each of the topic areas is collected in a database that analyzes how these policies are formed in that particular country, Raub added.

The researchers then analyzed policies that pertain to child development in each of the 193 countries in the UN.

Many of the researchers involved in building the databases are either fluent in the national languages of the countries or were given a translation by a source in the United Nations. Each set of data was analyzed twice by the researcher independently, and then compared to the findings of other researchers to ensure the validity of the analysis.

“What we’ve done in the Children’s Chances Initiative … is pulled together a bunch of the policies that are especially relevant to children’s chances and children’s opportunities to truly learn and develop physically, mentally (and) emotionally to their full potential,” McNeill said.

Some experts, however, have doubts about the report’s effectiveness in terms of dissemination among organizations and citizens.

Laura Alongi Brinderson, a field faculty member at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, has worked with organizations like Aviva Family and Children’s Services and the Department of Children and Family Services. She said she thinks that it would be difficult for members of social welfare organizations to sit and read through a report.

“(Social welfare workers) have such high case loads and the families have so many needs,” Brinderson said. “It’s really difficult to say, ‘Okay, I’m gonna allot two hours to read this report here and then somehow it’s going to inform my work and make all the difference in the work that I do.’”

Those involved with the report said they are optimistic about its potential impact.

“I think it’s really amazing that we’re finally getting data out there,” Raub said. “This report has been the product of at least seven years of work, so it’s exciting to see it getting out there and into the hands of policy makers and concerned citizens.”