Data key weapon to combat poverty

We live in a world that runs on data. Everything from television commercials, Internet advertising and political campaigns to what features are built into next year’s sedan or smartphones is all based on data collected about you, your shopping habits, your social media activity and your economic status.

The great irony of the data-sea we live in is that we have so much of it, that accessing really important information in a way we can effectively use is difficult, expensive and time consuming.

Sure, the marketing department at Apple will have bags of information to use to sell you a watch you don’t really need. But accessing information about, say, the social indicators of health can be like finding one’s way through the Minotaur’s labyrinth.

There is kaleidoscope of data sets out there covering everything from rates of high school dropouts, access to health care, income levels, cancer rates, dental health, mental health and so on.

They are often collected separately, using different research methods. So getting a complete picture is difficult.

But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

On Thursday, Hamilton Spectator journalist Steve Buist gave a presentation at Niagara Region headquarters in Thorold to an audience of people who work on local poverty issues, concerning his 2010 series of articles titled Code Red.

Working with a researcher from McMaster University, Buist’s series pulled together a wide variety of data to paint a vivid picture of poverty in that city.

Some of the information was easily and publicly available. Other data sets cost thousands of dollars to purchase.

The resulting stories showed the areas of Hamilton where residents have the lowest income levels are the same ones that have the highest rates of illnesses, including cancer.

They also have the lowest levels of education, and the highest rates of high school dropouts and teen pregnancies.

It’s not that we didn’t know a low economic standing was directly linked to a host of medical and social problems prior to Code Red.

But seeing that data laid out so starkly, graphically on maps showing at a glance the disparity between the city’s wealthy and poor, makes reality impossible to ignore.

In Niagara, we have never seen such a comprehensive collection of data, which is to our disadvantage. We cannot adequately plan social service programs from transit to affordable housing efforts if we don’t have a comprehensive picture of who needs help the most in Niagara, where they live and what their lives are like.

As it stands, we are often building programs with the accuracy of a blind man throwing darts. Hitting the bull’s-eye becomes more a function of luck than planning.

To be fair, Niagara is not operating entirely in the dark.

The Niagara Health System has critical data it uses when planning hospital sites. And the Region’s public health department uses social data to determine where to focus cancer screening programs.

But the information is fragmented, and doesn’t create the kind of complete picture we need.

In Hamilton, Code Red data resulted in some institutional and grassroots changes to deal with poverty in a targeted fashion.

Those trying to combat poverty in Niagara say having that kind of data would go a long way here.

Lori Kleinsmith, a health promoter at Bridges Community Health Centre in Port Colborne and a member of the Social Assistance Reform Network of Niagara, said there are areas of the region that are underserviced precisely because the right data isn’t in the hands of decision makers.

Many of our health services are regional, which they need to be. However, some of our poorest citizens, such as those who live in the neighbourhoods on the east side of Port Colborne, don’t have the means to access them, Kleinsmith said.

A big part of the reason why is that the designers of those services didn’t have access to comprehensive data on the economics and health of the region.

The question, then, is who pulls all this data together? And who funds the effort?

I’d suggest a partnership between our regional government and post-secondary institutions would be the best place to start, although I am not the expert here.

What I do know is the longer Niagara operates without that information, the more our efforts to help our less fortunate brothers and sisters will continue to hobble along on one leg.