A remarkable report entitled “For the Sake of All” was issued last week at a community conference. Scholars from Washington University and Saint Louis University conducted the research, and a host of collaborators, advisors and community stakeholders helped to shape the year-and-a-half process and the final report.
As I sat through the conference and reviewed the “For the Sake of All” publication, I could not help but wonder about how we use data as a society.
“For the Sake of All” is a well-researched report on the health and well-being of African Americans in the St. Louis region. This is nothing new, you might say. What’s different about this project is that it connects the consequences to the entire region. It put forth compelling reasons why the health status of black folks matters to the entire region. Perhaps this has been the missing piece to getting a more pro-active, comprehensive and adequately funded health plan in place.
The other important aspect to the report is that it gives policy responses to problems. It offers some possible solutions that we as a broader community can start discussing and implementing.
There are many known facts in the report. But in some cases, even the ugly facts that we have become comfortable with were cast into a new or different light. The sophisticated graphics also helped to illuminate the facts in sobering, insightful ways.
For example, there exists an 18-year differential in the life expectancy of St. Louis residents who live in certain adjoining wards.
Or the fact that the number of deaths due to poverty combined with those due to the lack of high school diplomas could fill about 7 Metrolink cars per year. This is at a cost of $3.3 billion annually.
How do we use data based upon the lived experiences of people to chart a more humane course for the well-being of all? Unfortunately, policy and law makers tend to use a lens based upon race and class, which leads to a judgment about who’s worth the investment.
We know the 4th grade reading scores of children are being used as predictors for planning future prison beds. We could just as easily and cheaply use the data to implement a more targeted and rigorous reading program in the first, second and third grades of these children.
We choose not to do so. That’s why the U.S. has the highest incarcerated population of an industrialized country and still has low levels of reading scores for poor children.
“For the Sake of All” gives us a lot of think about, especially about where the region goes from here with the information put into our collective hands. The website has been visited by people from 46 countries. I hope we’re more interested in the next steps for our area than they are.
We can’t continue using a lens that looks at people in black and white, at who lives in the city or the suburbs, or at who’s educated and who’s not. If the report does nothing else, it makes it crystal clear that our lives are inextricably linked and that health care is a basic human right.
To view the report, go to forthesakeofall.org.
