{"id":23622,"date":"2025-06-03T10:49:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T14:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dvsnightingstg.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=23622"},"modified":"2025-06-03T10:49:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T14:49:20","slug":"data-communities-in-jeopardy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nightingaledvs.com\/data-communities-in-jeopardy\/","title":{"rendered":"Data About America\u2019s Communities Are In Jeopardy, and Lives May Hang in the Balance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the years, I\u2019ve worked with counties across California focused on combating drug overdose in their communities. My goal is to help local organizations leverage data to assess the impact of fentanyl and other opioids while communicating these findings to community leaders who can take action. In short, the aim is to use these data to save lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there is one group with which I\u2019ve worked and written about before for Nightingale<\/em><\/a>\u2014the Yurok Tribe in far Northern California\u2014where there is no well of data from which they can draw. For many reasons, overdose data are not available for them to understand the deep impact of overdose on Native American tribal members. I remember Yurok Tribe members telling me that they were flying blind with no access to useful data and that they often don\u2019t know about an overdose until one of their tribe members dies from it, when it\u2019s obviously too late to provide supportive and life-saving services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I fear we may be entering an era when many more communities across California and the country will be flying blind without access to data\u2013and on a range of issues, not just the devastating impact of overdose. Among the swirl of changes taking place within the federal government these last few months, you may not have noticed that the availability of meaningful, community-level data is under serious threat. As staff across U.S. data-collecting agencies are let go (and with it, institutional knowledge is lost); budgets for data work shrink; and federal data advisory boards are disbanded, the capacity for the federal government to collect data, conduct surveys, and publish community-level findings could greatly diminish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We won\u2019t notice these impacts immediately. After all, the Census Bureau, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with other federal agencies often take a few years to publish community-level data on poverty, crowded housing, nutrition, smoking, domestic violence, and suicide prevention, among many other topics. One person with deep experience managing federal data described to me recent developments with the U.S. data infrastructure as a slow rot, as if termites are, bit by bit, eating away at the foundation of federal data. So it may be years before we truly see the extent of this damage, and by then, it won\u2019t be easy to simply reinforce the foundation with minor repairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few would likely argue with the concept that we need detailed data\u2014including from federal data systems\u2014for the U.S. to compete effectively in a worldwide marketplace where companies, and countries, increasingly rely on data to get ahead. From the perspective of global competitiveness, deconstructing our federal data systems seems short-sighted. After all, to compete globally, we need current and reliable data, better breakdowns, and a greater capacity to interpret, visualize, and communicate meaningful findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s the world stage. And for those of us in the visualization community, we soon may have less social good data to visualize, and innovation with public sector visualization could slow. Why, however, are data important to communities across America? There are countless ways in which individuals harness these data to save lives, build safer communities, and improve local well being:<\/p>\n\n\n\n