This session includes two presentations that demonstrate the use of storytelling to address health equity.
- Presentation 1: Highlighting Inequity through Digital Storytelling (Adam Soberay, Francis Cheung - Aurora Research Institute; Jan Jenkins - Colorado Refugee Wellness Center)
- Presentation 2: Colorado Equity Compass: How to Use a Data Storytelling Platform to Advance Health Equity (Annie VanDan - Change Matrix; Julie Ramirez - RISE Southeast Coalition; Jennifer Newcomer - Colorado Futures Center)
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Full presentation descriptions:Highlighting Inequity through Digital Storytelling
Historically, due to language and cultural barriers, data collection has been a challenge in refugee and immigrant populations. These barriers were further highlighted by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The Aurora Research Institute has partnered with the Colorado Refugee Wellness Center to evaluate a program that seeks to reduce employment related barriers as a means to address health disparities in refugee and immigrant populations. The project team has partnered with several city and state partners in Colorado with the goal of changing employment related policy to improve job opportunities for refugees and immigrants. In this presentation the speaker will highlight some challenges in the transition to a virtual data collection platform and share some best practice tools to reduce technology barriers for better data collection. Additionally, we have learned in past research that many refugee and immigrant populations respond better to qualitative methods of data collection. For this project the evaluators used a digital story telling method to allow participants to provide data in the form of storytelling on their experience with the project. Following these digital stories, the evaluators created a video as part of the final report. Participants will learn more about digital story-telling and how to incorporate this method into data collection efforts.
*Participants will be invited to share their experience as part of this presentation. (This aspect of the presentation will depend on participant interested and availability).
Colorado Equity Compass: How to Use a Data Storytelling Platform to Advance Health EquityThe Colorado Equity Compass Collaborative, comprised of The Colorado Trust, Shift Research Lab, and Change Matrix, was formed in 2019 to address social determinants of health in Colorado’s communities. The Collaborative has developed an open data platform of Colorado-focused, community-level health equity indicators that brings to life the experiences of residents in communities experiencing inequities. Four Colorado communities have been engaged as pilot sites to provide input and direction for the platform. In this presentation, learn how each site is engaging their community to determine the focus areas for their data (e.g. housing affordability, food access, life expectancy). Hear how the communities including Southeast Colorado Springs and Denver's Colfax Neighborhood are identifying the best practices for data collection, data governance and data sharing.