We have an announcement. We’re joining up with our @TheAtlantic colleague @DrIbram and his @AntiracismCtr to begin tracking racial data about COVID-19 in the US. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
We’re looking forward to making this data widely accessible, alongside important context for understanding health disparities. We salute organizations like @Data4BlackLives, @hopkinsCDHS, and @kff for their work, and hope we can contribute to the understanding of this outbreak.
The first task will be to begin gathering this data in a repeatable way. We’ve built out a data structure we think will work on its own and within the @covid19tracking API. We’re doing some test data runs and should be up for regular tracking this week.
Though more than 30 states now provide some form of racial data, through this early work, we’ve identified some key failings of the current state reporting. Some important problems are detailed here: covidtracking.com/blog/tracking-…
Over the coming weeks, we’re going to ask states to address these problems and the others that are sure to arise. This important data should be available in the most useful, standardized way.
Local journalists and community advocates are already pushing for this transparency, and we hope to add our collective shoulder to the wheel.
In the next couple weeks, we will have a dedicated page, the COVID Racial Data Tracker, that will allow anyone to explore these dynamics of the outbreak, using both the data we collect and other datasets that enrich our understanding of the disparities that we’re seeing.
We’ll also continue to do our own analyses and publish them in ongoing coverage @TheAtlantic. One early example was Vann Newkirk's look at COVID-19's threat to the south: theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Collecting data about race is fundamental to understanding this outbreak. We know the health care system underserves black communities. We know that Latinx and Asian communities experience overlapping but distinct barriers to care, too.
And, of course, there are socioeconomic factors that add another dimension to these analyses. The first step, though, is just having the data available so that community leaders and health officials can pinpoint local needs.
You can read the rest of @DrIbram's essays, which launched us into this effort here: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
