By Denice Ross and Allison Plyer

Eighteen months since the Covid pandemic upended the world, and sixteen years since we learned this lesson from Hurricane Katrina, good data is the path toward an equitable recovery.

Here are 5 lessons learned from the pandemic and our careers in data and disasters:

1/ Design data to be granular enough to show which demographics and geographies are disproportionately impacted.

2/ Invest in data capacity now—to help with the current crisis and also with future shocks.

3/ Address data quality, standards, and timeliness to shed a more complete light on rapidly changing conditions and the needs of the most vulnerable.

4/ Crises exist in context. Incorporate a broad range of data into decision-making to ensure critical aspects of our society and democracy don’t get derailed. 

5/ Build partnerships and support community organizing to turn data into action. 

Read the full article here.

History has shown that large-scale crises accelerate pre-existing trends, exacerbate inequities, and permanently change societies and civic life. Large-scale disasters produce an enormous break in the status quo followed by continuous change. Recovery from the pandemic and deep economic crisis will vary across communities, and different populations will face various barriers to achieving shared prosperity.

Pandemic to Prosperity offers a comprehensive overview of the Covid-related impacts on our lives and livelihoods, governments, civic institutions, and overall well being. This report series analyzes disparate data, adding top-level insights about the implications of each indicator, what each indicator reveals, and how the indicators are interrelated. It highlights mostly state-level metrics with breakdowns by race, gender, age, and income where available, relying on both public and private data sources.

Reports are archived at PandemicToProsperity.org, and I co-authored the series from its inception to the Oct 2021 report focused on the South.