Project Description
PolEx (Policy Explorer)
PolEx (Policy Explorer) is a suite of interactive dashboards delivered via a software subscription service, where users can explore the different aspects of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government's Wellbeing Framework with integrated data models.
The ACT Government's Wellbeing Framework enumerates and measures the things that represent quality of life to Canberrans. The launch of this Framework in 2020 along with the mission to “embed wellbeing in Government decision making”, sets an expectation of budget and regulatory mechanisms to influence wellbeing outcomes.
Crafting policy takes time and resources sometimes. PolEx dashboards assist policy makers to make data driven strategic recommendations. Users can create an engaging and localised perspective on policy proposals with an interactive dashboard of metrics that relate to various domains.
Click here to view a live demo of PolEx Health Module
Click here to see our PolEx product video
PolEx Health
PolEx Health is the first module of the PolEx suite. PolEx Health addresses one of the “healthy lifestyle” indicators in the Health domain of the ACT Wellbeing Framework. It focuses on policy responses to obesity and chronic health conditions that may affect the next generation of Canberrans and our case study supports it.
The image above shows the PolEx Health dashboard for the ACT region.
In this working proof of concept we present a sample of the PolEx database with metrics such as data on regional income, prevalence of childhood illness, and the density of social gathering spots for children that may impact their health.
In this instance the tool has identified that density of fast food locations are correlated with worse health outcomes in children, which for our well being domains means that health is being traded off for social connection.
Policy makers pushing for social activity will need to keep this connection in mind when working toward the well being of the community as a whole, and we explore this particular instance further in a case study.
The image below shows a filtered dataset of ACT's Belconnen District.
PolEx Health (Demo)
This is the PowerBi file which contains the proof of concept dashboard.
Users will need to open the file with Power BI Desktop.
Policy Paper (Demo)
To demonstrate the utility of PolEx we have included a policy paper about the impact of locating fast food outlets near schools, with a discussion about effects of an obesogenic environment on community wellbeing. The accompanying dashboard, showing existing ACT Wellbeing Indicators alongside density of fast food locations is used to support the policy position and communicate its value to the ultimate decision-makers.
An advantage of the PolEx dashboard product is that new or alternative social indicators or policy levers can be added to augment the dashboard, and extracts from its high quality data visualisations can be embedded in text documents to support your proposed narrative.
What's Next?
The upcoming PolEx modules include:
- PolEx Community
- PolEx Education
- PolEx Environment
- PolEx Finance
- PolEx Housing
- PolEx Social
- PolEx Predictive: utilising projections from trusted data sources and predictive modelling to gauge the effects of your policy proposals.
Tech used
R Script, PowerBI, HTML, Git, QGIS, Animaker
Team Apples