Racism as a Public Health Crisis: Lessons Learned

 

In 2020, Public Health-Seattle & King County (PHSKC) acknowledged what many communities have long known: racism is a crisis that impacts the health and well-being of communities throughout King County. Communities Count hosted a workshop during the 2021 Best Starts for Kids Summit to discuss the role of data in naming racism as a public health crisis. The presentation highlighted local inequities for communities of color as well as a few examples of the underlying systems and practices that contribute to the inequities and engaged in a dialogue about how data can be better used to address the crisis. The recorded presentation and materials are available on the Communities Count data and evaluation training resources webpage here. 

The session was well attended with over 100 participants. Attendees included representatives from non-profits and community-based organizations in the region as well as other King County staff.  When we asked participants about the primary ways they use data, the top responses were program planning, grant-writing and quality improvement.  

This workshop as part of ongoing conversations and efforts to make data more equitable. In order to frame this conversation, before discussing specific data points, the team shared steps that the Assessment, Policy, Development and Evaluation (APDE) unit at PHSKC has taken in order to make data more equitable, which include supporting community-led data collection to highlight their own stories, disaggregating race data, and engaging in more qualitative data collection. The presentation included data from five different indicators: infant mortality, educational attainment, housing, life expectancy and COVID-19 cases. In an effort to move away from an individual-level of analysis that places blame on communities experiencing inequities, the Communities Count team discussed policies and practices that create inequities such as redlining and systemic inequities in neighborhood funding. Highlighting policies and practices help to turn the magnifying glass back on systems.  

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The dialogue portion of the presentation consisted of asking attendees four questions:  

  • How can we (including agencies and organizations who collect, analyze, and disseminate data) change the legacy of data being used against communities? 

  • How can data be used to address racism? 

  • What additional data, tools, or resources do you wish you had to address the impacts of racism? 

  • What does data justice look like? 

Common responses included:  

  • Highlighting community strengths and resilience 

  • Participatory data collection 

  • More qualitative data and narratives of lived experiences 

  • Holding cultural rigor to the same value as scientific rigor  

  • Valuing indigenous ways of knowing 

  • Investing in data and evaluation training and professional development of BIPOC researchers 

Communities Count appreciates all of the feedback from respondents and we are committed to making data more equitable for the communities we serve. Please stay tuned for our workshop series to continue this important conversation and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of our homepage if you’d like to be notified when registration opens or when workshop recordings and materials are posted on our website. The next workshops in this series will continue focusing on: 1) the role of data in naming racism as a public health crisis including the impact of systems and policies, 2) a deeper dive in data related to the impact of COVID-19 on communities of color,  and 3) how to supplement existing quantitative data or missing data with community stories. 

 

 
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