Daily Archives: May 4, 2021

Part 1 of a series

A virtual Town Hall meeting 1pm Tuesday, April 6 explored issues and opportunities created by the search for improvements in the Highway 252/I94 Corridor segments in North Minneapolis, Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park.

Stairstep Foundation CEO Alfred Babington-Johnson joined Conversations moderator, Al McFarlane as co-host, to introduce an initiative to support Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) efforts to broaden engagement around the project for African American and African immigrant residents who may be impacted by improvement considerations.

Forum participants included: Reverend Dr. Francis Tabla, senior pastor Ebenezer Community Church in Brooklyn Center, Bishop Richard Howell, the Diocesan Bishop of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World and Pastor of Shiloh Temple Church in North Minneapolis, Reverend Cyreta Oduniyi, a pastoral leader at Liberty Church in North Minneapolis and Superintendent McKinley Moore, pastor of Jehovah Jireh Church of God in Christ in Brooklyn Park.

The Town Hall meeting was the first of three planned Town Halls in the effort engage leaders of African and African American church organization congregations and neighbors, and marketing outreach through McFarlane Media, producer of Conversations with Al McFarlane and owner of Insight News.

Often when we hear corporate CEOs and political office holders or leaders of civic or educational institutions speak, they cite strategic plans that guide their steps. When we lift the curtain and get a chance to see these plans, what we discovered is that they're not simply minutes of a discussion was held in the previous week. Now, we see plans that represent the thinking of the best minds that are available in the timeframe of the planning is 10, 15, 20 years, or more, said Babington.

The truth of our village is that we are not aware of, nor are we often included in the early discussions of important social or physical infrastructure changes that dramatically affect our lives. That is why this moment is so exciting to me. From the governor, to the commissioner of MnDOT, to our gathered friends here, this forum, there's a determination that we will begin anew with intentional inclusion of folks that have traditionally been left out. The process begins with the information. The Bible says, My people perish, for lack of knowledge. We've determined that none will perish for lack of information about 252/I-94, Babington said.

April Crockett, MnDOT risk area manager who leads the 252/I-94 project called the effort is a significant undertaking for the department. We have challenges and we have opportunities. We have the opportunity to address operational issues as well as have a conversation with and within the communities. We're exploring, making connections, building relationships and having conversations in a way that we haven't been able to do, she said.

John Thompkins is multimodal planning director for MnDOTs Metro District. He is responsible for implementing modal plans, like, for instance, a bike plan, pet plan, Americans with disability plan, or even a freight plan involving rail, water or trucking. In implementing those plans, Thompkins said, we have to be mindful of quality of life, environmental stewardship and economic vitality, which articulate MnDOT's vision for transportation. And with that we have to be able to hear all voices, all voices of the community, not just one in particular, but all voices that matter.

We have a challenge in reaching African and African-American communities. We had to better articulate what we want to do in the historically underserved or sometimes uninformed communities. We wanted to do outreach and engagement that was intentional and authentic with the target communities, Thompkins said.

Project Manager Jerome Adams said the 252/I94 Project starts at Fourth Street North in downtown Minneapolis and goes up to highway 610 in Brooklyn Park. We are starting the process of looking at alternatives. The goal is to pick an alternative to construct by 2024. It's going to be a three-year long process to look at alternatives. And then the goal is to begin construction in 2027, Adams said.

Providing background information on why modifications are being explored, Adams said, Currently, we're seeing a high number of crashes, traffic congestion, and significant barriers for pedestrians and bicyclists in this project area. Also both roads are deteriorating and need to be repaired.

Adams said Brooklyn Center, in 2016 and Hennepin County, in 2018 did studies to understand issues on the corridor. And we're doing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that will outline potential projects benefits and impacts to the area surrounding highway 252/I94. Our team will continue engaging with the community and other stakeholders at each step in the EIS process, he said.

Superintendent McKinley Moore of Jehovah Jireh Church said the intersection of Hwy 252 and 85th Avenue in Brooklyn Park has concerned for the community for many years. The safety of vehicle, bicycle` and pedestrian traffic through the intersection is a real and present danger. We've lost several young people at that intersection. Our own congregation lost one young man who was struck and killed by a vehicle at that intersection. So it is indeed a present danger and we would like to see important changes made at that intersection, he said.

That's one of the reasons why we're here, Superintendent Moore, Adam said. Over the next three years, we want to look at solutions that can reduce if not eliminate these fatalities. Also the intersection at 66th Avenue was ranked second worst for crashes in all intersections across the state. 85th is ranked ninth. So, yes, it is a big problem. on the project. Right now 252 has six signals and we'll be looking at several options including do we get rid of the signals and replace them with grade separations, meaning putting a bridge over the local road or vice versa.

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MnDot seeks authentic, intentional engagement with African and African American residents along the Hwy 252/I94 Corridor - Insight News

As the Biden administration considers federal resources for coal workers and their communities, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) urge a set of comprehensive supports estimated to cost between $33billion over 25 years to $83billion over 15 years. The analysis, Supporting the Nations Coal Workers and Communities in a Changing Energy Landscape, underscores that a fair and equitable shift to a low-carbon economy requires intentional, robust, and sustained investments in coal workers, their families, and their communities.

Coal-fired electricity is down to 20 percent today from about half of the nations electricity generation a decade ago. With more closures on the horizon, a sustained and comprehensive set of supports is needed to ensure individuals who have powered America for generations can stay in their communities, prepare for new careers with family-sustaining wages, and can retire with dignity.

For decades, the coal industry has simply locked its doors and forgotten the individuals and communities who rely on the coal industry and who exist in almost every state across the country, said UWUA President James Slevin. Approaching these closures with the right set of economic supports offers a better alternative to the chaos and devastation were seeing today.

Recognizing coal and mining facilities often directly employ hundreds of individuals and many more indirectly across several counties, the economic and social infrastructure of a region undergoes lasting changes when facilities close.

The economic upheaval resulting from the dramatic job losses in the coal industry over the last decade has uprooted families, deepened economic anxiety, and left community leaders scrambling to keep schools open and social services in place, said report co-author Jeremy Richardson, a UCS senior energy analyst who comes from a family of coal miners. But solutions are readily available with forward-looking and visionary action by policymakers.

According to the UCS/UWUA analysis, approximately 90,086 coal miners and coal fired-power plant workers were employed in 462 counties across 47 states in 2019. Decreased demand has uprooted families, contributed to generational poverty, decimated tax revenue and gutted community services, including educational and emergency response funding. Many more coal workers and communities face the same fate without intentional policies to address these changes.

The analysis identifies specific policy supports lawmakers should enact to help dislocated coal workers find new career opportunities: five years of full wage replacement, health care coverage and employer retirement contributions, robust educational opportunities including paid tuition for academic, vocational, and other programs for up to five years for not only workers, but also for their children to prevent a fall into generational poverty, as well as access to a suite of social services.

Giving these workers a fighting chance to find new career opportunities is not only the right thing to do, but the cost is only a small fraction of what must be invested in the energy system to shift to a low-carbon economy, said Richardson.

UCS and UWUA urge the Biden administration and Congress to work together to develop and fund comprehensive programs and policies to support workers and communities that will be impacted by the shift away from coal. The proposed assistance package would cost less money if the services were made available over a longer time frame, in the range of 25 years, because more people would hit retirement age and not need support, according to the analysis.

Job losses in the coal mining sector were formerly centered in Central Appalachia, a region which saw tens of thousands of job losses in the early part of the decade. Today, western mines, including recent high-profile layoffs in Wyoming, are experiencing the impacts of this shift. States in the Midwest, including Michigan, in particular, will be impacted by coal plant closures over the next five years.

We hope this kind of analysis offers a path forward as lawmakers seek well-designed policy at every level of government for coal-impacted individuals and communities, said Lee Anderson, UWUA government affairs director and report co-author.

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UCS and UWUA say $33-83 billion needed for laid off coal workers - Union of Concerned Scientists

RALEIGH The Triangle is already primed and structured to capitalize on new opportunities in the post-pandemic economy, says author professor Richard Florida, best known internationally as a thought leader on development and author of The Creative Class.

Welcome to the rise of 15-minute neighborhoods.

The emerging trend is on the decentralization of business districts in favor of a re-envisioning of what he termed neighborhood center districts with vibrant work-and-play hubs.

The idea of a 15-minute neighborhood, or what I like to call a complete community, is a community where more-or-less you could do all of your daily activities, Florida told an econimic development conference put on Tuesday by the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. This has been the real reset in the pandemic, is that more and more people realize they want that.

The Triangle already has clustered neighborhoods with vibrant live-work-play centers, he added.

Downtown Raleigh, Downtown Durham, Raleighs North Hills and the emerging Hub RTP in Research Triangle Park fit his concept in many ways, to name a few.

Housing pain: Apple, Google, other projects will stretch already tight Triangle markets, experts say

You have a particular competitive advantage for competing for families, Florida added.

While Florida did not mention recent economic developments in the area in the pre-recorded discusses with Chamber CEOAdrienne Cole, the region is winning many of them from a new $1 billion Apple campus to a new Google engineering hub and numerous life science expansions.

Looking ahead, the regions that will be most successful in the future and capitalizing on subtle, nuanced shifts in the post-pandemic economy are going to be ones where the companies present will also support the indirect service-sector jobs created by the economic growth of the region, Florida added.

Regions must also be able to support individuals working in the service sector who generate enough income to afford to live within the region, and within the areas 15-minute neighborhoods, argued Florida. Otherwise, these workers will be pushed further and farther from these vibrant communities, resulting in less diversity, more income and wealth disparity, and more inequity.

Diversity and equality are emerging as advantages for communities, Florida added, noting that based on anecdotal information young people like living in communities of different people.

Being intentional around talent, being intentional around place making, being intentional about fostering equitable communities, those are the opportunities, said Florida.

COVID-19 did force one significant change: How we work. And theres fallout from that.

Weve had a giant, forced experiment in remote work, and what did we find, asked Florida. We know that we kind of like to go to the office occasionally, but not every day, 9-5. Especially if were doing mental work, writing work, thinking work, we can be very effective at home.

Apple, Google deals are transformative but come with costs, says NCCU entrepreneurial leader McKoy

What that will mean is that businesses may continue to invest in office locations, but that workers wont be required to be present each day or all day.A big change is going to be in our central business districts, said Florida. I think of these as factories for information processing.

The office towers arent filling, said Florida, and thats particularly true right now for cities with central business districts that are typically and traditionally accessed by public transit. People arent scared of the elevator, theyre scared of the train or transit to get there.

Florida also addressed some issues such as reports of a mass exodus from urban centers due to COVID-19.

The shifts in the economy that have occurred since the beginning of 2020 are not as dramatic or drastic or dire as some predicted early in the global spread of the coronavirus, Florida said. Rather, the shifts that were seeing in the economy are more subtle and more nuanced.

Despite commentary describing the fleeing of people and families from larger urban areas, such as New York City, to smaller suburban or exurban communities as widespread and permanent, Florida argued differently. Two groups of people were largely responsible for geographic transitions, he noted.

According to Florida, one group that moved away from urban cities were students, whose parents invited them to return to their more suburban or rural homes.

The pandemic accelerated family formation moves, said Florida. These moves that would have taken over one, two, three, or five years, well, they really happened in one or two months.

Young people will return to cities following the pandemic if history holds, he added. Thats what was observed after other global pandemics, Florida noted, and given the importance of talent markets in these cities as well as the social opportunities that young people seek, cities will remain important in the future economy.

The bigger trend is not where we live, but where we work, said Florida. So while the regions that were growing prior to the pandemic, which includes New York, Boston, and the Research Triangle, will not die, rather, they will probably accelerate.

What is changing is how and where people work. Historically, most people were limited in choosing where to live based on where they could work, and that relied on some form of transit, whether by train, subway, or automobile, said Florida. The rise of remote work has stretched the boundaries of metropolitan areas, and one of the things that were seeing is emerging interest in beautiful rural areas outside of major metropolitan areas, he added.

Florida expects top cities will continue to attract people, but for that attraction to be spread out to their more exurban, fringe areas, not just in the suburbs. Meanwhile, said Florida, were going to see some of what Steve Case calls the Rise of the Rest, but I dont think its going to be infinite.

Duke professor: Apple project may widen disparities in North Carolina

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Creative Class author touts Triangle for more growth in rise of '15-minute neighborhoods' - WRAL Tech Wire

The ongoing racial injustice, pandemic and associated disruption of 2020 -- along with the attack by violent insurrectionists on the U.S. Capitol building -- have taught us many things about our societies, not only in the United States but also around the globe. Among those lessons is that higher education is deeply implicated in the impoverished and fragile state of democracies. Some academic and student leaders are calling for postsecondary institutions to make the creation of antiracist, inclusive, socially just democracies throughout the world priority No.1. Such an undertaking requires disruptive change in higher education values, use of resources and its privileged place in many of our societies. Is higher education ready for such change?

At the 2020 Association for the Study of Higher Education conference, we shared research and practice from universities in South Africa, the United States and the International Association of Universities. We concluded that postsecondary institutions -- notable contributions during the pandemic notwithstanding -- have too often been complicit in systems that create or reproduce savage health and economic inequities, public disregard of science, and individuals who feel alienated and forgotten. Examples include the scarcity of locally situated university clinics and the lack of educational opportunities that perpetuates the exclusion of marginalized groups and working-class students. Indeed, COVID-19 has revealed the extreme poverty, persistent deprivation and pernicious racism that fester in the shadows of some of the nation's foremost institutions of higher learning. This disconnectedness from local community needs has promoted a sense of disenfranchisement by communities of color and increased the distrust society has of academics.

The widespread assumption that universities are progressive, multicultural, antiracist places has insulated many of us who work and live in higher education from reckoning with the lived experiences of marginalized communities all over the world. Indeed colleges and universities are gendered and racialized, and many institutions perpetuate systemic racism, colonialism and sexism through gatekeeping, educational discrimination and not sharing vital resources with local communities.

It is crucial to embrace these multiple realities simultaneously: that higher education is deeply implicated in reproducing systemic discrimination and racism in the United States and around the world and, as we imagine what could be next, higher education is distinctly positioned to help build and develop the infrastructure, resources, values and education systems necessary for diverse, inclusive, antiracist democracies. And there are examples of students, faculty and staff engaged in that work.

In this moment of disruption, postsecondary leaders, students, faculty and staff might humbly consider four steps to advance antiracist, diverse and just democracies locally and globally.

No. 1: Redesign universities to focus on the development of students who help create antiracist democracies around the world. Although postsecondary institutions will always play a vital role in social mobility, the pandemic has made it clear that the most important thing K-12 and higher education can do is to educate ethical, engaged citizens for antiracist, diverse and socially just democracies. That means galvanizing students' growth as organic intellectuals, collaborative problem solvers and agents of social change.

For example, the University of Costa Rica requires 800 hours of community work for each student who matriculates. In 2017, a total of 4,631 students did 1,038,150 hours of community work, in 164 projects in all areas of knowledge. Of significance, the former rector describes the purpose of this effort as to raise awareness and promote social and critical awareness among students and the university community; and to collaborate with communities in identifying their problems in order to develop their own solutions, within horizontal relationships conducive to mutual learning.

To better translate its strategic plan into action, the university has repositioned some of its buildings in the most underserved parts of the country, opening the doors to all people not attending yet interested to engage. Education for democratic citizenship through active engagement and collaborative problem solving with the local community should become a core purpose and pedagogical principle of higher education.

No. 2: Reimagine the knowledge project. The future we are imagining requires researchers from various fields and disciplines to take on the problems of our democracies and focus on issues of human benefit and local/global significance. To make that happen, universities need to incentivize and reward student, faculty and staff efforts to take on those issues in interdisciplinary ways, listening to and in partnership with local communities. That will not only help democracies thrive but also make for better scholarship, as knowledge is powerfully advanced when research is conducted through partnerships between academics and nonacademics. Higher education institutions have been rightly critiqued by various members of society -- including families, students, policy makers and community leaders -- as gatekeepers, distancing the credentialed knowers from the uncredentialed receivers of knowledge.

The ongoing dialectic in South Africa between government, universities, social movements (like the Treatment Action Campaign) and industry produced a swift repurposing of university-based research and innovation platforms created to address the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic. This resulted in the participation of scientists in the global effort to identify new variants of the virus as well as to develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. In addition, engineering schools in the country have turned their attention to using 3-D printing to manufacture PPE and noninvasive ventilators.

More universities should play a key role in linking expertise from those within the academy and those on the ground, creating a community of experts and diverse voices to solve our worlds most serious problems, such as poverty, unequal schooling and health care, and environmental degradation. We need to foster inclusive, expansive notions of expertise.

For instance, social scientists and educators can conduct participatory action research and develop methodological approaches that center community members voice and place-based knowledge to more effectively solve locally manifested universal problems. Only then will the knowledge imperative be seen as relevant to the well-being of the many as opposed to the private gain of the few.

No. 3: Change ownership of the university. For too long, citizens have viewed their universities like privately held companies that have little relationship to their own lives. Yes, people have local pride when sports teams win, but that is not the same thing as postsecondary education being relevant and tied to the destiny of local citizens. That must change. A case in point: in Thailand, Siam University has decided to revitalize the unsafe university surroundings to provide for better living conditions and well-being for Thai people who have never before set foot in a university.

On the other side of that world, University College Dublin has developed a wide range of initiatives to facilitate and enhance community engagement opportunities and build strong bridges between its campus and the neighboring communities. Universities must commit to serving as vital bridges between societies -- and as multilateral organizations using their vast resources (especially their human and academic resources) and positions of privilege to advance social justice.

No. 4: Get the values right. The values that universities should hold dear are open inquiry, diversity and inclusion, democracy, equity, and justice. Equity and justice require inclusive representation among students and academics -- including more people who are first-generation, from marginalized and working-class communities, and women. That would entail intentional recruitment within high schools situated in historically minoritized and working-class neighborhoods, as well as actively recruiting recently minted Ph.D.s from BIPOC groups to fill the ranks of the professoriate.

It would also involve universities working in serious, sustained, comprehensive partnerships with public schools in their locality to diversify and enrich the educational pipeline. Universities should also reallocate funding to support the hiring and retention of women and people of color within the faculty and administrative ranks of the institution, as well as provide more scholarships to first-generation students.

To realize the values cited above requires a reorganization of resources to infuse democracy across all aspects of higher education. If such values were in place, we would use technologies in ways that do not exacerbate inequalities but strengthen their impact on human well-being and development. For example, the pandemic made clear that institutions have the capacity to provide more online education. For students who may not have the financial resources to attend universities face-to-face, online education can remove financial barriers that may otherwise hinder access.

Strengthening internationalization of higher education and global engagement and collaboration is crucial for these efforts. We need a global movement -- one that leads to a global commons of engaged scholars and their community partners, scholarship and knowledge. To accomplish this, we need to incentivize scholars so they are rewarded for engaging in community-based projects. Many faculty members, particularly early-career ones, are dissuaded to devote any time that takes them away from the dominant discipline-based publication process. Thus, tenure and promotion should place more value on publications and other scholarly products that focus on work with and contributions to communities.

Scholars also need to earn trust from communities. Community members have long complained that faculty come and mine places for data and leave without ever helping support the communities from which they collected those data. Universities and faculty need to help amplify the voice of the community and illuminate their needs to policy makers. These kinds of institutional changes will require lots of sharing and learning from colleagues across the globe, as occurs through both the International Association of Universities and the International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy.

In the United States, people have criticized elected officials like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz for inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol because, having attended selective universities like Stanford, Princeton and Yale, they should have known better. Putting aside the elitist and rankist assumption that such institutions would have the monopoly on knowing better, we must recognize that, in fact, higher education has too often failed to effectively educate active citizens dedicated to creating and maintaining antiracist, inclusive and socially just democratic societies.

Just as many colleges and universities are reckoning with their own institutional histories of exclusion, higher education as a field must recognize where it has failed and come up short. Only then can it come honestly to tables with communities, governments and citizens to build inclusive, antiracist democracies together.

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Higher ed must play a role in creating antiracist and just democracies (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed

PR.com2021-05-04

Bainbridge Island, WA, May 04, 2021 --(PR.com)-- If 100 girls from fifth grade through college joined forces to make a difference in their communities by giving voice to other girls, what could they accomplish? The Power of 100 Girls, fiscally-sponsored by Hack+, is recruiting inspiring and dedicated girls and young women to join its Founders Circle to support girls overlooked in a traditional grant or scholarship system.

To become a Founders Circle member, girls must commit to raising and/or donating 100 dollars annually, then meet quarterly to review applications and select girls, women, and related organizations to support. They will also provide leadership for The Power of 100 Girls organization as ambassadors for the initiative through recruitment, sponsorship and growth opportunities for the new nonprofit.

Founders Circle members are independent thinkers who are passionate about helping girls and young women who are, for various reasons, overlooked or unable to pursue the help they need to succeed, says Merrill Keating, 16-year old founder of The Power of 100 Girls and a freshman at the University of Washington. As an introvert myself, I have noticed so many girls miss out on scholarships and awards because society favors extroversion. Without access to a good support system and connections, many of these girls can fall through the cracks. When I observed so many engaged and passionate girls struggle to launch their causes or projects, I decided to attract 100 of them so we could make a difference in the future of other girls and young women like them. By harnessing the power of girls at an early age, Founders Circle girls become investors and entrepreneurial catalysts who uplift, empower, and help shape the destinies of others.

The Founders Circle membership will be made up of girls who are dedicated to being allies and keeping a fair and open mind. More than a community service opportunity, participation in The Power of 100 Girls is a chance to learn and grow together in an authentic and collaborative environment while pledging to do good and pay it forward. 100 percent of the minimum 100-dollar annual investment will become part of the scholarship fund, and the organization hopes to recruit sponsors and partners to help offset the administrative costs and expenses associated with starting and running the organization. My hope is that an intentional Founders Circle of inspired young change makers will make the open-hearted decisions to make a difference, she said. Rather than waiting for funding from an external source, we can boldly and purposefully create a world of our choosing.

Visit powerof100girls.org for more information.

Contact Information:The Power of 100 Girls via Hack+Merrill Keating415-938-8088 ext. 700Contact via Emailhttps://www.powerof100girls.org

Read the full story here: https://www.pr.com/press-release/835850

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The Power of 100 Girls Seeks Inspiring Youth to Make a Difference in Their Communities - IT News Online

Lisa Barker is the new executive director of the School of Educations Office of Professional Learning and Community Engagement (PLACE), Dean Diana Hess announced.

I am thrilled that Lisa will lead PLACE, says Hess. She is an innovative leader with deep expertise and the ability to ensure that the work of faculty and staff in the School has a real impact on many communities near and far.

PLACE represents the Wisconsin Idea in action as it helps ensure that the knowledge fostered within the School of Education reaches beyond the boundaries of campus to have a local, state, national, and global impact. Using the expertise of faculty, staff, and community stakeholders, PLACE supports and develops transformational professional and community learning programs for a diverse audience of participants across the arts, health, and education fields. Both credit and non-credit offerings allow individuals to develop skills while building community among like-minded colleagues.

In her role leading the office, Barker is responsible for providing direction for the administrative operations and advancing the program goals and objectives of PLACE. Barker also becomes part of the School of Educations leadership team as a member of Senior Staff.

I am thrilled by this opportunity to envision the future of PLACE, says Barker. I am inspired by the talent of the PLACE team, and by the School of Educations interdisciplinarity and intentional centering of equity, diversity, and inclusion. We are excited to continue building bold, beautiful programs that bridge faculty and staff ideas with community needs in education, health, and the arts.

Barker is no stranger to PLACE, having served as the offices education director since April of 2020. In this role, she has worked on translating educational research into professional and community learning opportunities.

Barker earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University in curriculum and teacher education, and is interested in how the principles and practices of improvisational theatre can inform the work of educators.

Prior to arriving at UWMadison, she taught English education at Stanford, the State University of New York at New Paltz, and Towson University. She also served as director of education for Adventure Stage Chicago and was manager of the City University of New Yorks Creative Arts Teams Paul A. Kaplan Center for Educational Drama, where she helped launch the first masters degree in applied theatre in the United States.

Barker started her career in education as an English, reading, and drama teacher at James Lick High School in San Jose, California.

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Barker named executive director of PLACE - School of Education - University of Wisconsin-Madison

May 03, 2021 -While health equity has been a top priority among leaders in the industry for several years, the equitable distribution of resources became even more critical during COVID-19.

From testing to care access, organizations had to develop strategies to ensure they were reaching populations most at risk during the pandemic. With the availability of vaccines, entities had to refine and enhance their health equity efforts to adequately protect all patient groups against the virus.

For leaders at Hennepin Healthcare, a health system in Minneapolis, this meant employing knowledge gained earlier in the pandemic.

We realized pretty quickly that its one thing to know your patient populations and have a certain amount of vaccine, but equitable distribution of the vaccine is a different ball game, Deepti Pandita, MD, chief health innovation officer at Hennepin Healthcare, told HealthITAnalytics.

Our experience with COVID testing taught us that outreach strategies need to be tailored to the individual one outreach method is not going to work for all patients. For example, if we have outbreaks of COVID in certain populations, we need to get trusted community leaders to do the testing rather than wait for them to come to the healthcare system. So, we aimed to apply the same lessons to our distribution strategy.

READ MORE: Data Visualization Tool Allows Users to Track COVID-19 Spread

A big part of tailoring those outreach strategies involved gathering patient data.

We knew that we needed to be deliberate and intentional in choosing where to target the vaccines. But we also knew that we had to comply with the requirement of getting enough vaccines allocated in time, said Nneka Sederstrom, PhD, MPH, chief equity officer at Hennepin.

We used our technology to strategically target the zip codes that we knew we needed to reach before expanding to other areas, like having our interpreters and clinicians reaching out to patients to try and get them in.

The health system used the EHR to capture social determinants information and identify patients with transportation barriers, unstable housing, limited English proficiency, and other elements that could impact their ability to get the vaccine or their susceptibility to the virus.

Leaders then combined that information with data visualization tools based on zip code to identify neighborhoods that needed more attention.

READ MORE: Ensuring Health Data Collection Protects Patient Privacy, Equity

Without data, we wouldn't know where to start, Pandita said.

When we heard the vaccines were coming, we identified which of our patient populations needed vaccinations, created registries, and then developed outreach strategies that could be tailored to those patients. We considered which ones had online portal access, which ones had telephone numbers listed, which ones had emails listed, and their preferred language. Our operational people could then get to work on designing outreach strategies and setting up vaccination sites.

Incorporating all of this information into a visualization tool is key for demonstrating why targeting strategies are necessary, Sederstrom explained.

Without the data, it can be really hard to make the case for why equity needs to win out, she said.

People often push back on equity efforts because theyre worried or concerned that these strategies mean preferring one group over another. The reality is that if the goal is to decrease spread, decrease impact, and decrease mortality, then we've got to use the data to prove where those pockets are.

READ MORE: Using Social Determinants to Promote Health Equity During a Crisis

Additionally, data visualization tools can help healthcare executives understand whats working, and what needs to improve.

We also have to see the data to know how were doing. We can see if were closing in on a gap, and how that will impact next steps. Its not just a one-and-done process, Pandita added.

With social determinants information, leaders can ensure theyre meeting patients where they are.

We've used zip codes to do targeted community outreach to connect with religious organizations, community groups, and others within those zip codes to try and set up community-based vaccine clinic opportunities. That way, we can target the populations were missing, Sederstrom said.

Although its important to get vaccines to enough people as quickly as possible, Pandita stressed that equity efforts cant get lost in the shuffle.

Because we are in a pandemic, speed is important. But speed and equity often clash with each other. So, while one stream is the speed part of the vaccination process, the other stream is equity. And you need to keep an eye on both streams as you go forward, she said.

Leaders also shouldnt look at equity efforts as harmful to other patient populations.

We're not sacrificing others when we focus on equity, said Sederstrom.

The people who have access and resources will be able to get vaccinated at a steady stream anyway. Being deliberate and intentional in finding the people who need the most help is part of what we need to do.

For other organizations designing vaccine distribution strategies or any health equity strategy personalization and trust go a long way.

One outreach strategy is never enough. You need to tailor the strategy and understand the population youre serving, Pandita said.

The other part of that is building trust. Just because someone is seeking care in your healthcare system doesnt mean they have enough trust in the system to come to you for the vaccine. That has been a learning experience. You have to engage trusted community partners to educate patients, and actually go into the community to understand the needs and barriers.

It will also help to understand the reasons behind patients uncertainty in the first place.

Hesitancy does not mean refusal. It just means that we need to figure out why there's hesitation and take steps to address it, said Sederstrom.

People may interpret hesitation as outright distrust of the system, and they may think that's too big a barrier for them to try and address. But we need to learn more about why theres hesitation, what we are missing in our communication, and what struggles these communities are facing.

Even after COVID-19 is behind the healthcare system, the combination of social determinants data and visualization technologies could help inform health equity efforts.

Our methodology could serve as a template not only for other safety net systems, but all healthcare systems, said Pandita.

These strategies should drive public policy and advocacy around vaccination for any future pandemics, because diseases dont differentiate between who has resources and who doesnt. These situations automatically disadvantage those who don't have the means and resources, and we have to be very cognizant and very methodical about keeping that front and center in our strategies.

The lessons learned about health equity during the pandemic should influence care delivery going forward.

We cant be scared to have the hard conversations that need to be had, and look at the truths that the data shows us. The knowledge that there are inequities within our systems, within our communities, and within our patient outcomes is real. And we have to be honest and open about it, and be intentional in addressing it, Sederstrom concluded.

In the times when the pandemic is on hold, or in between pandemics, that's the time to do the work to rectify inequities. That way, when the next one comes around, we don't have to have the same conversations.

Continue reading here:

Leveraging Data Visualization Tools to Promote Health Equity - HealthITAnalytics.com

President Price, Provost Kornbluth, deans, and faculty: Thank you for inviting meand including me in this venerable class.

To all the Duke community alumni, friends, faculty, family, whether youre tuning in from Durham or across the world: Welcome!

And most importantly thankfully, blissfully let me extend a big, in-the-flesh congratulations to our guests of honor: The Class of 2021!

What a day! What a year! What an accomplishment! Congratulations!

D-D-M-F!

You know, this is the first time Ive been in front of a live audience, hearing live applause, since last February. 14 months ago. For a needy performer, this is a very big deal. It feels nice.

But this is not my first time on your beautiful campus. Way back in 2004, I performed at LDOC with someone named Kanye West. (Anyone heard of him?)

In those days, I would play piano and sing the hooks for Kanye, and hope people would notice me.

Then later that year, we released my first album, Get Liftedand Im realizing today that maybe its thanks to Duke that my career took off.

And Im thrilled its brought me full circle, back to speak with you on this most momentous day.

Seriously, this is a special milestone. And if you dont feel it yet well, thats okay, too. When I was prepping for my own graduation way back in 1999, I remember feeling pretty indifferent.

Back then, I was too cool to care about a silly ceremony. Id already done the work. Id made the friends. Id turned in my papers and passed the tests.

What was the point of all the pomp and circumstance?

But, during the actual ceremony, I realized: Being together is the point. Being joyous is the point. Celebrating is the point.

We have so few moments to enjoy these rites of passage to just revel in our accomplishments with the people we love.

Today is one of those moments. And, of course, after a year when we couldnt gather at all, it takes on a special meaning.

Lets just acknowledge the elephant in the stadium: On your way to Wallace Wade, your class lost a lot.

Some lost job offers. Some lost loved ones. And all of you lost a whole year of those little moments that make college so special the in-between moments.

Those late nights in Perkins, sitting across the table from your delirious friends.

Those talks in the common room or spontaneous lunch dates. Those weeks camping out in the freezing cold for tickets to a sports game, because apparently thats a thing we do here.

Those nights dancing around burning benches after you win a sports game because, apparently, thats a thing we also do here?

All this loss is no joke.

I keep thinking about your senior performances. Losing those would have been tragic for me. All you band members and a capella singers and dancers and improv aficionados, I feel your pain.

Youve lost something you cant get back. I wont sugarcoat that. It sucks.

But from what youve lost from all of this vast, incalculable loss youve gained something, too.

The fact that youre here today, graduates of one of the worlds best universities, means that youve had to approach life with a certain competitiveness.

I know because I did it, too.

I skipped grades to get ahead. Worked hard to graduate second in my high school class. Went to Penn. Got a job at Boston Consulting Group.

That path required this constant drive to push harder, reach higher, do better to try to be perfect, or close to it. Im sure it sounds familiar.

But over the past year, you were forced to pause... to see yourselves not in competition with one another, but in community with each other. Anyone getting sick was a risk to everyone.

We all had to slow down. Social distance. Cover our faces. Stop filling our days with maximum productivity, and simply keep each other safe. Keep each other alive. Care for one another.

And this perspective you gained will serve us all. Because while that competitive drive that got you here can be an incredible gift, it can get in the way too.

We all know that for Duke to win, UNC must... I think we say G-T-H?

But that competitiveness can be a slippery slope to thinking: For me to get ahead in life, for me to succeed, someone else is going to have to lose out. Someone else is going to have to suffer.

You let that competitiveness take over your thinking, and you might start seeing life as a zero-sum game.

This kind of thinking has poisoned our democracy from the beginning.

One of the most important books I read this year was The Sum of Us, by Heather McGhee. In it, McGhee lays out exactly how much that zero-sum game has cost us.

Americas story has always been marred by efforts to exclude, to dominate, to subjugate to keep certain groups of people with no voice, no power, and no opportunity. Workers. Women. Indigenous people. Black people. Immigrants. The LGBTQ community

All because of a fear that if those people did better, people at the top would lose out.

The miracle of our story is that, as we expanded opportunity, in our best moments, we proved that those fears were unfounded.

When more people made more money, rich business owners didnt suffer. They got more customers! Prosperity increased for everyone.

When people whod been excluded finally got their voices heard, it didnt mean everyone else had to sit down and shut up. Our national conversations got better, truer, smarter and so did our public policies.

Our nation is at its best when we realize that we all do better when we all do better.

Yet, today, were still fighting against the old zero-sum thinking thats been holding us back since the beginning.

We see it in efforts to deny people their right to vote. We see it in the shameful attacks on trans rights.

Our nation is at its best when we realize that we all do better when we all do better. Yet, today, were still fighting against the old zero-sum thinking thats been holding us back since the beginning.

We see it around the world. In places like China, Hungary, Russia, India, Myanmar across the globe, nativism, sectarianism, exploitation, and authoritarianism are gaining ground.

We see it in efforts to hoard economic opportunity, too. Today, the 26 wealthiest people on the planet own as much as the 3.5 billion poorest.

And powerful people are spending lots of money lobbying to keep it that way.

And, of course, we see it in our policing and carceral systems: In the simple fact that so many people heard Black Lives Matter and assumed it meant that other lives couldnt matter, too. Thats zero-sum thinking if Ive ever seen it.

Now, I know some of you may be thinking: Why is he bringing us down on our graduation day?

And you wouldnt be the first to say something like that.

As North Carolina native Nina Simone once said, It is an artists duty to reflect the times in which we live. And you know what I think? It is also a bankers duty. Its a lawyers duty, a doctors duty, a teachers duty, an engineers duty, an entrepreneurs duty, a plumbers duty, a nurses duty. A moms and dads duty.

Ive been hearing calls to shut up and sing for my entire career. (Shut up and sing)

Well, as North Carolina native Nina Simone once said, It is an artists duty to reflect the times in which we live.

And you know what I think?

It is also a bankers duty. Its a lawyers duty, a doctors duty, a teachers duty, an engineers duty, an entrepreneurs duty, a plumbers duty, a nurses duty. A moms and dads duty.

Class of 2021, Duke has poured all kinds of tools and resources and experiences into you.

I am asking you today to use them on behalf of our democracy. To remember just how interdependent each of us is on each other. To build communities that are healthier and safer for everyone--where everyone can live up to their full potential.

But how do we do that in practice?

Its a tough question.

When I was in high school, I entered a Black History Month essay contest, sponsored by McDonalds. Yes, McDonalds. The prompt was: How will you make Black history?

With a 15-year-olds confidence, I declared I would become a famous musician:

This, in turn, I wrote (and Im quoting myself here), will put me in a position of great influence, which I will utilize in order to be an advocate for the advancement of Blacks in America.

But how does one do that? The problems are entrenched and interconnected. There is no clear path to follow. I kept thinking: where do I even start?

During the decade since Ive become heavily involved in this fight, Ive stumbled on three answers that Ill share with you today.

First, while your schooling may be over at least for some of you the learning doesnt stop today.

It cant.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time at the library reading about Dr. King and other civil rights heroesFrederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells. I wasnt into comic books so much. These were my superheroes.

But even as someone steeped in the civil rights movement all my life, if you would have asked me about criminal justice when I was sitting where you all are today, I probably would have framed it as a personal responsibility issue. I think thats pretty common for those of us whove spent our lives striving for perfection. I thought that the problem was with individuals, not the system.I had family members and friends who were locked up. They messed up, and I found a way not to.

But then I learned about our countrys mass-incarceration complex: How the United States has just 5 percent of the worlds population, but 25 percent of its prisoners. How one in three Black men will serve prison time during their lifetimes. How more Black men are under corrective control today than were enslaved on the eve of the Civil War.

How much of this over-incarceration is a direct result of intentional policies that targeted people of color?

Take the war on drugs.

Our leaders said theyd wage war on drugs, but crises of substance abuse and drug addiction didnt go anywhere. Instead, this war destroyed communities. It tore apart families.

All of us have borne the brunt of that, but especially black and brown communities.

We already suffered from housing and school segregation, massive wealth disparities, chronic underinvestment. Then, these communities were specifically targeted for enforcement. Even though black, white and brown people use drugs at roughly similar rates.

And now, what should have been a public and mental health issue has turned into an excuse to disappear millions of people from their families and communities.

The more I read about all of this trauma and tragedy, the more I understood the systemic issues, the more passionate I got about doing something to change it.

So I started Free America, a campaign to reform our deeply unjust, criminal-justice system.

And the first thing we did was listen.

I met with people currently incarcerated. I met with their families. I met with survivors of crime. I met with district attorneys, corrections officers, state legislators, and civil rights activists. These folks knew a lot more than I did. I had to listen to them with an open mind and a humble spiritand then focus on amplifying their voices.

Only then could we effectively support crucial reformslike initiatives to decriminalize drugs, find alternatives to incarceration and restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated people.

Its been some of the most gratifying work of my life.But it never would have happened if I simply considered myself already educated on these issues, and stopped my learning there.

So thats lesson number one. Heres number two:

I think its natural to think you should start by tackling the biggest problem you see in the biggest possible way.

They say, go big or go home, right?

But in my experience, some of the most important work you can do starts at home, whatever that means for you.

So often, we focus on major national issues. And dont get me wrong, national issues matter.

But municipal, county, and school-board elections determine the everyday realities of our lives: Who lives where? Who goes to school where? Do we all feel safe walking down the street?

George Floyds murder mobilized a national and even global movement for change. But the truth is, most of the tangible reforms we need to reimagine public safety will come from local elected officialsthe mayors and city councils setting budgets, the prosecutors deciding how justice will be served.

And thats not just true for criminal justice reform.

Local non-profits and organizers know their communitiesand know what they need in order to fight hunger and homelessness and violence in their local area.

I know some of you are about to move to a new community, each with its own unique historical context and social fabric. And just as many of you moved to Durham four years ago and adopted this city as your own, I hope youll learn about your new homes past, present, and future. Find its changemakers and boundary-breakers. And bring your own unique gifts to the table, to engage in the real, tangible bettering of your community.

There is wisdom, strength, and power in community. Youve learned that here at Duke. But dont forget it as you find and build community elsewhere.

Continued here:

John Legend: Leading With Love to Build Healthier and Safer Communities - Duke Today