As the organization for and of psychology, APA strives to collect, apply and share data in ways that best represent and support the discipline. In all of our activities, from strategic planning to collecting data about the psychology workforce, APA wants to demonstrate and model the power of solid analytics. Within the past few years, the association has worked on two data projects: one to collect more data about the discipline and the other to provide data about APA members to the membership.
In 2012 we started a large-scale project that has blossomed into an important initiative we call the data warehouse. The "warehouse" is actually a large number of data sets from both internal and external sources such as licensing boards and graduate departments. It includes data beyond the APA membership. The goal of the warehouse is to provide the best available data to answer questions important to the discipline and policy makers. Questions like: How many licensed psychologists reside in South Carolina? What is the demographic mix of psychologists within the New England states? How many psychology students completed dissertations in 2014?
While the APA data warehouse was created to support the discipline's data needs, the second new project, our member data portal, is a tool for the exclusive use of APA members and affiliates. The portal, accessed through your MyAPA account (behind APA's security firewall) allows members to review aggregate data and generate reports about the APA membership. Go to the portal to generate summary level reports on the number of APA members and affiliates nationwide or in a particular state, age group or division. For example, via the portal you can determine the gender composition of your division or the demographics of APA Fellows.
Within the APA Central Office we also use data to drive our decision-making. A prime example is APA's Strategic Plan. Based on data collection about what APA members expected of the association and on what issues we can have the greatest impact, APA adopted its first-ever strategic plan in 2009, establishing three overall strategic goals and seven initiatives to support those goals. (See strategic plan). Each initiative is associated with performance measures that are reported quarterly. 2015 is an evaluation year of the original five-year plan, 2010–14. I will report on the results of the initial strategic plan in a column later this year.
The APA directorates are also involved in projects that use important data about the discipline. For example, staff in the Practice Directorate and American Psychological Association Practice Organization use Medicare utilization data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to inform policymakers about the type and number of services psychologists provide to Medicare patients.
APA's Education Directorate, working with numerous partners in the psychology higher education community, is collecting and using data on students and match rates to address the internship imbalance issue.
Finally, APA's Center for Workforce Studies (CWS) collects, analyzes and disseminates data on the psychology workforce and future workforce, including demographics, diversity, work setting, employment opportunities and compensation. The Monitor's popular new "Datapoint" feature is written by CWS staff. For more information about CWS's work and reports visit their Web page on APA.org.
Overall, APA's more robust data collection will give both the association and the field expanded information on which to base decisions and advance the discipline.