A National Slate of Leaders Comes Together to Unlock the Power of Community Data
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (April 8, 2021) ––RECoDE, the Rising Equitable Community Data Ecosystems project is pleased to announce the creation of a new Learning Council. Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, RECoDE launched in recognition that while many people across the United States are working to share health, social services, and community data across sectors to improve individual and community-level health, these efforts are accelerating at different paces and leaving some communities behind.
A partnership among Data Across Sectors for Health (DASH), Health Leads, the National Alliance against Disparities in Patient Health (NADPH), BrightHive, and data.org, RECoDE aims to engage voices from communities across the country in a series of conversations to develop actionable recommendations. This intensive engagement and co-created set of recommendations aim to ensure that community data ecosystems evolve with an equity first lens, and in concert with the communities they seek to serve.
As an expert resource to RECoDE, the Learning Council will lift up insights from the series of community conversations that will be used to develop recommendations, priorities, and an action plan to support the development of community data ecosystems that are equitable, accessible, and actionable by and for the communities they serve. Learning Council members bring a depth of knowledge, and represent a wide range of communities and geographies within the United States. The Learning Council members are:
Ryan Bair, DSW, LCSW
Chief Network Officer
Rogue Community Health – Medford, Oregon
Sarah Davis, MPH
Program Manager, Grants Management & Innovation Research & Analysis
Pima County – Tucson, Arizona
Rey Faustino, MPP
Chief Strategy & Impact Officer, Founder of One Degree
Alluma, One Degree – Oakland, California
Lucson Joseph, DHS
Researcher
National Alliance against Disparities in Patient Health – Atlanta, Georgia
Freddy Kaniki, PhD, PharmD
Postgraduate Residency Program Director
Maniilaq Health Center/Indian Health Services – Kotzebue, Alaska
DeAnna Minus-Vincent, MPA
Senior Vice President, Chief Social Integration & Health Equity Strategist
RWJ Barnabas Health – New Jersey
Nijah Newton-Famous, MPA
Senior Engagement Manager
Benefits Data Trust – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Clemens Noelke, MA, PhD
Research Director, diversitydatakids.org
Brandeis University – Waltham, Massachusetts
Tommy Pearce, MSW
Executive Director
Neighborhood Nexus – Atlanta, Georgia
Paul Sorenson, MSW
Director
St. Louis Regional Data Alliance at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, Missouri
Jasmine Ward, MPH, PhD
Executive Director
Black Ladies in Public Health – Arlington, Texas
Christopher Wood
Executive Director and Co-Founder
LGBT Tech – Staunton, Virginia
“In order to build community data systems that help improve health and equity, we need to follow the lead of local experts and people with lived experience of inequitable systems,” said Hilary Heishman, Senior Program Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “We are grateful to the newly-appointed Learning Council members for bringing their expertise to this project, which will benefit greatly from their combination of hard-won community insights, research, practice and in-depth knowledge of different community needs.”
“This year, COVID-19 has forced us to make difficult and swift decisions around data — how to collect it, how to securely store it, how to analyze it while safeguarding privacy and preventing bias,“ said Ginger Zielinskie, Chief Strategy Officer of data.org. “The Learning Council members will drive recommendations that offer a framework for this decision-making, and enable the creation of just community data ecosystems nationwide.”
Appointed for a one-year term, Learning Council members will engage in a series of conversations about community data usage and impact, culminating in a year-end convening and a publication open to all.
About RECoDE:
The Rising Equitable Community Data Ecosystems project (RECoDE) aims to convene disparate voices for concrete deliverables to ensure that community data ecosystems evolve in concert with the communities they serve, and do not perpetuate systemic biases and inequities. data.org serves as project lead and convener, working with partners from Data Across Sectors in Health (DASH), Health Leads, the National Alliance against Disparities in Patient Health (NADPH), BrightHive, and The Rockefeller Foundation, with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as the primary supporter.
About data.org:
data.org is a platform for partnerships to build the field of data science for social impact. data.org works with organizations from all over the world to increase the use of data science to improve the lives of millions of people, and to tackle society’s most significant challenges. For more information, follow data.org on Twitter @DataDotOrg or visit data.org.