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Decisionmaking

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Restoring Public Trust, COVID-19 and Thanksgiving, Vaccinating Teachers: RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on how the Biden-Harris administration can restore public trust, the risk of Thanksgiving becoming a super-spreader event, why teachers should be among the first to get a COVID19 vaccination, and more.
Nov 26, 2020
Commentary
Biden and the U.S. Intelligence Community
President-elect Biden faces a daunting domestic and foreign policy agenda. Choosing an experienced hand like former CIA Deputy Director Avril Haines to be the next Director of National Intelligence could help restore the Intelligence Community's role in informing White House decisionmaking.
Nov 25, 2020
Report
The Benefits and Costs of Decarbonizing Costa Rica's Economy
Costa Rica set the ambitious goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050. An evaluation of the benefits and costs of its National Decarbonization Plan finds that under most plausible assumptions about the future, the plan would achieve or nearly achieve its goals and do so at a net economic benefit.
Nov 24, 2020
Commentary
Giving Children a Voice Can Lead to Better Outcomes for All: Developing the New European Strategy on the Rights of the Child
Children have a right to participate in decisionmaking that affects them. It will be important to ensure that there are mechanisms in place to support that process, and that they are resilient, even in times of crisis.
Nov 3, 2020
Research Brief
Green Infrastructure Can Help Manage Rainfall in an Urban Watershed
Urbanization, inadequate investment in aging infrastructure, and more-frequent heavy rainfall events due to climate change have led to sewer overflows, flooding, and reduced water quality in U.S. cities. The challenges of increasing volumes of stormwater can be addressed by a mix of solutions.
Oct 29, 2020
Report
Managing Heavy Rainfall with Green Infrastructure
An evaluation of Pittsburgh's Negley Run watershed shows how green stormwater infrastructure could reduce flooding and provide positive economic benefits in areas that face urgent flood risk.
Oct 26, 2020
Journal Article
A Framework for Conceptualizing How Narratives from Health-Care Consumers Might Improve or Impede the Use of Information About Provider Quality
This paper describes a conceptual framework for examining mechanisms by which narrative information might influence consumer judgments and decisions about providers.
Sep 16, 2020
Commentary
COVID-19 and How Poor Planning Leads to a Lack of Freedom
The pandemic has made Americans less free, confining us to our homes, and separating us from the people we love and the activities we value. This experience may help people learn the importance of planning to preserving and expanding freedom.
Sep 4, 2020
Journal Article
Trends in the Use of Clinical Decision Support by Health System–Affiliated Ambulatory Clinics in the United States, 2014–2016
Use of clinical decision support (CDS) in ambulatory clinics is increasing but remains modest. The CDS function with the greatest use is basic medication screening, which increased from 52% of clinics nationally in 2014 to 61% in 2016.
Aug 25, 2020
Journal Article
Engaging Multiple Worldviews With Quantitative Decision Support: A Robust Decision-Making Demonstration Using the Lake Model
This study builds on recent advances in methods and tools for decisionmaking under deep uncertainty to demonstrate analytic approaches that help reduce the tension between quantitative decision support tools and approaches for addressing wicked problems.
Aug 25, 2020
Commentary
Wargaming the Department of Defense for Strategic Advantage
Defense acquisition, personnel, and management systems have long been seen as areas in need of reform, as costs and man-hours continue to increase over the years. Gaming new policies that govern these areas can offer early insights into potential stumbling blocks and provide leaders valuable feedback on decisions before major costs are incurred.
Aug 3, 2020
Commentary
What Strategic Decisions on the Horizon for the Department of Defense Can Best Be Shaped Through Wargaming?
The U.S. Marine Corps is not alone in its avid use of wargaming to shape its decisions of the future. The other services are conducting similar efforts with equal rigor and zeal. And as the national deficit grows and budgetary constraints mount, the Department of Defense will most likely increasingly leverage all its analytical tools, including wargaming.
Aug 3, 2020
Multimedia
RAND 20/20: Governing by Artificial Intelligence
In this remote video conversation, RAND's Osonde A. Osoba discusses the use of AI systems in governance processes—from facial recognition technologies in state surveillance applications to risk-predictive tools applied in the criminal justice system. Brandon Baker hosts.
Jul 30, 2020
Commentary
Patients Should Have a Role in Deciding the Value of Medicines
Patients, their family members, and the general public have historically been excluded from contributing to health care value assessment models. But methods for including patient voices in research are far less complicated or demanding than some researchers believe they will be.
Jul 10, 2020
Commentary
Learning to Live in a Riskier World
Even as the public discussion about COVID-19 risk becomes increasingly polarized, many Americans are slowly and quietly balancing the threat of infection against valued daily activities, and learning to live in a riskier world.
Jul 2, 2020
Commentary
What Elinor Ostrom Teaches Us About Avoiding the 'Tragedy of the Commons' in Delivering the Public Interest in the Post COVID-19 World
The public interest can be an elusive concept, especially when trying to distinguish between shared and individual interests, a problem brought into sharper focus as we try to find the right path to a post COVID-19 world. Governments are seeking to do the best for their societies with limited information. As more data is being acquired, how can public policy achieve common interest?
Jun 22, 2020
Report
Health Care Resource Allocation Decisionmaking During a Pandemic
The Core Guidance Checklist can help health systems and policymakers make choices about how to allocate scarce but lifesaving resources—for patients and for health care workers—during the COVID-19 crisis.
Jun 18, 2020
Commentary
How Can Wargaming Improve Government Response to Catastrophic Events?
Wargames are abstracted models of national security challenges, where players' decisions and their consequences are adjudicated within a rules-based environment. Due to its inherent flexibility as a tool, wargaming can be applied to a wide range of issues. Yet, it is important to understand what wargaming can and cannot do.
May 29, 2020
Q&A
Modeling the Future of COVID-19: Q&A with RAND Experts
The phrase “flatten the curve” familiarized Americans with epidemiological models used to estimate virus transmission, cases, and potential deaths from COVID-19. But new models are needed as the country enters a different stage of the crisis.
May 26, 2020
Journal Article
Meeting Climate, Mobility, and Equity Goals in Transportation Planning Under Wide-Ranging Scenarios: A Demonstration of Robust Decision Making
Robust Decision Making offers a promising complement and possibly future alternative to current prediction-based and scenario approaches that could help planners better manage in today's conditions of fast-paced change.
May 21, 2020

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RAND Topic:
Decisionmaking

Topic Synonyms:
DA;
Decision Analysis;
Decision Making

Researcher Spotlight

Bradley DeBlois

Management Scientist

Brad DeBlois is a management scientist at the RAND Corporation. His research focuses primarily on basing, logistics, global mobility, and expeditionary medicine. At RAND he has led and contributed to research teams to assess basing options to improve access to training ranges, identify factors…
Sarah Weilant

Senior Policy Analyst

Sarah Weilant is a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation researching communities, systems, organizations, and individuals' needs for change. Topics of analysis relate to equity, well-being, resilience, workforce and organizational development, transportation, education, and national…

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