Government Policy Use case explained in Anatomy of Decisions

The most imperative decisions taken by the government are in the field of education and healthcare. So it depends upon data to make those decisions. 

In this particular example, Utkalika took an example of a developing country where there are limited resources, and it wants to make the most out of it. The government collected a large number of data that included the healthcare metrics as well as the education metrics.

They wanted to focus on the areas where there are low healthcare metrics. The intuition behind this was that where education and healthcare are correlated. Better literacy rates mean better employability, hence better hygiene-related know-how.  Let's hear from her as she takes us through the example.

After implementing the policy, they waited for months for it to show its effects. But they realised that the areas where the education metrics improved, there was no effect on the healthcare metrics. 

But why did it happen?

While they collected the sample data, they identified the wrong population.
Since ages, females have taken the responsibility for cooking, home hygiene and child care. So the places where the education improved, solved the problem for only half of the population. The female education was still far-behind in those areas  
The sample, they found was composed of mainly the male population. So the results were not as expected.