Wear a Mask for 100 Days: How President Biden’s call to action can restore America’s faith in public health

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Wearing a face mask during a pandemic seems like a no-brainer. Public health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have repeatedly endorsed the practice, along with handwashing and social distancing, as critical to curbing the spread of COVID-19. Moreover, with a new variant of the coronavirus entering the U.S., now is the time to take definitive action. And President Biden’s call for all Americans to wear a face mask for 100 days is just what the doctor ordered.

Yet there has been strong resistance over mandates to wear face masks with members of anti-mask groups claiming their person freedoms are being violated. According to one of their leaders, Ammon Bundy, who once organized armed standoffs against federal agents, “It’s not about, you know, the mandates or the mask. It’s about them not having that right to do it.”

This is really nothing new. The struggle between personal freedom and public health has been brewing for decades. Complaints about so-called Nanny-State laws, governmental protections that supposedly interfere with individual rights, actually began in the 2000s. Over the years they included mandates to wear motorcycle helmets, restrictions of smoking in restaurants and bans on sugary sodas, all of which have all been characterized as governmental overreach.

However, with the advent of the pandemic, the opposition had reached a higher level of intensity, generating a storm of controversy. Mask-wearing rules in retail environments have sparked many a meltdown, with videos going viral over the internet of individuals going ballistic, kicking and screaming, some having to be physically removed from the store.

Large public demonstrations have also become common, with anti-mask protestors getting into people’s faces, using the fact that they are not wearing a mask as an act of aggression. After one such protest in Los Angeles, the city council passed a mask-wearing law, with up to a $1,000 fine or six months in jail for those who don’t comply.

But the idea of compulsory mask-wearing, like state-mandated lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, has only served to further inflame the anti-mask groups. At one recent demonstration in Idaho, armed protestors swarmed health district offices — and some health officials’ homes — screaming and blaring air horns. In the face of such hostility and personal threats, many public health professionals have been forced to leave their jobs. Since April 1, some 181 have resigned, retired or been fired in 38 states. It’s the largest exodus of public health leaders in American history.

All this has significantly weakened America’s system of public health and severely handicapped efforts to combat the pandemic. Overwhelmed with COVID-19, many hospitals have cancelled elective procedures and some are now unable to accept any new patients. Eventually no services may be available at all, even for emergencies. In such dire circumstances, the cost of health care would be sure to skyrocket. That is, for anyone who can gain access.

Public health initiatives, along with their rules and regulations, are designed to prevent such worse-case scenarios from taking place. And they have been largely successful throughout the twentieth century, including vaccinations for polio, smallpox, and measles. Stricter driving under the influence and seat belt laws have reduced traffic fatalities. Public smoking restrictions are protecting vulnerable populations from being exposed to secondhand smoke.

While measures like these sometimes do infringe on personal freedoms, they are adopted because they serve the greater public good, which is something that government is legally obligated to do. In times of national emergency, such as with the COVID-19 pandemic, this could include temporarily closing businesses and quarantining individuals. Otherwise, we would have little chance of curbing the rates of infection and death, which have already reached unprecedented levels.

For this reason alone, mask-wearing laws could be legally passed and enforced. However, that is not how we like to do things in a democracy, nor is it what we need to do right now. What we need now is voluntary compliance. What we need now is the restoration of America’s faith in public health. President Biden’s call for masking up could be a step in that direction, but it must not be considered as a threat to personal freedom. Instead, it should be regarded as a patriotic duty, a contribution each person must make to avert a national disaster, something each American should be more than willing to do to support our democratic system of government.

Let’s remember that Joe Biden is not the first president to make such a call. President Kennedy, in his inaugural address 60 years ago, encouraged us to “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Right now, wearing a mask for the next 100 days is something all of us can do for our country.

Author:
Dan Skiles
Consultant, IPS

Dan Skiles is a consultant and former Executive Director at the Institute for Public Strategies, a Southern California-based nonprofit that works alongside communities to build power, challenge systems of inequity, protect health, and improve quality of life.

Black Vaccine Hesitancy Stems from a Long History of Medical Racism

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Dr. Susan Moore, a Black medical doctor, recently died of COVID-19. She documented her experience leading up to her death, including being denied pain medication and proper treatment. Despite being a doctor, speaking in medical terms, and understanding the protocols, Dr. Moore was sent home and died just a couple of weeks later. In her videos, Moore blamed her poor treatment on medical racism. And, while some contest this kind of claim, medical racism in the U.S. has been ongoing since, well, since Black people came to this country in chains. The abuse, neglect, and unethical experimentation is well documented today.

At no time in history has the health of Black Americans equaled that of White Americans. From the days of slavery until now, the White medical community’s policies, practices and prejudices have had an enormous impact on the health of Blacks. When Africans began populating this country, mainly as slaves and second class citizens, many White doctors were taught and subscribed to the notion that Blacks required different treatments because they could tolerate more pain and had unpredictable reactions to medications. Therefore, White physicians were rarely careful or sensitive when treating Blacks.

James Marion Sims, widely recognized as the father of modern gynecology, came to prominence by performing shocking experiments on enslaved women while also forcing them to perform domestic duties and serve as nurses in his clinic. One of his patients was an 18-year-old named Lucy, who suffered incontinence after giving birth. During her procedure a few months later, Lucy was on her hands and knees, screaming in pain for an hour while a dozen doctors watched. Dr. Sims performed the same surgeries on White women, but with anesthesia.

The notion that Black people do not experience pain similar to White people still exists. A 2016 study by the University of Virginia revealed a significant number of White medical students and residents held false beliefs about the biological differences between Blacks and Whites, including that Blacks have thicker skin and do not feel pain as acutely. These notions show up in practice, even among children. A study of nearly one million children with appendicitis revealed that Black children were less likely than White children to receive pain medication for moderate and severe pain.

Another particularly egregious example of medical racism occurred in an operating room at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond in 1968. A 54-year-old African American factory worker, Bruce Tucker, fell at work and hit his head. He was taken to the hospital unconscious. When the doctors rushed him to the operating room, they did not attempt to revive him. Instead, they harvested his heart and kidney for a white patient who needed them. No effort was ever made to contact Tucker’s relatives. It is still unclear today as to whether Tucker was actually brain dead, as the surgeons declared.

There are many accounts in history books, medical literature, and other periodicals about unethical and immoral medical procedures on Blacks due to racist attitudes and practices. The Tuskegee experiment is a well-known example. From 1932 to 1972, Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, who had syphilis were recruited for a medical study to determine the course of the disease. The men were informed they had “bad blood” (at the time, the term encompassed several medical problems, including syphilis) and that they would receive free health care from the government. None were ever given antibiotics, despite the treatment being available. This horrific practice only came to light in a newspaper story.

So, here we are in 2021 amid a raging pandemic, where Blacks are dying disproportionately. A vaccine is available and a lot of media attention has been focused on the “vaccine hesitancy” of Blacks. It’s no wonder, considering our history. A cynical view would be that the attention paid to Black vaccine hesitancy is not because of an outpouring of sympathy for our COVID-19 death rate but because the U.S. won’t reach herd immunity without the participation of at least some Blacks getting the vaccination. America needs us but has a hard time admitting it.

Blacks have a lot to offer America. Indeed, look at the votes from the presidential election and the January runoff in Georgia. Black voter turnout is credited with changing the political tide of this country.

If a Black physician can’t get proper care in a hospital, what chance does any Black person have? Non-Blacks must recognize this disparity and speak up and speak out when seeing these racist practices. Non-Blacks should also take some time to study African American history, at least during this month, to discover how much Blacks have done and continue to do for this country. We believe, like any other American, that this is our home. We want to live a productive life and contribute to societal progress. But how long will it take for America to see that Blacks love this country even though this country seems not to love us?

Author:
Cynthia Nickerson
Media Advocacy Specialist

Cynthia Nickerson is a media advocacy specialist at the Institute for Public Strategies, a Southern California-based nonprofit that works alongside communities to build power, challenge systems of inequity, protect health, and improve quality of life.

Looking to 2021 Through a New Lens

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No one could have imagined 2020 would be such a challenging year for our nation. It has been a perfect storm. A once-in-a-century pandemic has exacted fatal tolls and collided with social unrest on a scale unseen in decades. Fault lines drawn long ago have burst at the seams, laying bare the inequality, injustice and rage underneath. However, as difficult as 2020 has been, it has brought opportunities to light that we must seize to repair the rifts in our divided society.

First, 2020 has elevated an understanding that systemic racism is pervasive. This realization came on like a freight train at a time when many Whites thought our country had moved beyond it. The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery lit the tinder that brought thousands into the streets. As Americans marched for justice, many other harsh truths were dragged into the light, including police brutality, incarceration rates, childbirth mortality and COVID-19 deaths suffered disproportionately by Black and Latinx communities. While it has been painful to witness, race has dominated the national conversation and motivated tens of thousands to act, by way of protest and demonstration, demanding change. In turn, institutions have been forced to reflect on their role and what they can do to help repair centuries old injustices.

Second, 2020 has catalyzed the beginnings of meaningful police reform, a reimagining that has long been necessary. This year’s tragic events have inspired a renewed political will and a sweeping set of reform proposals. Better oversight and training, new crisis intervention protocols, federal data collection standards – even fundamental questions like what should be the mission of police officers – are all on the table. People with ideas from both ends of the political spectrum must find common ground. They are moving into 2021, trying to meet in an understanding that demanding an end to police brutality and valuing the role of law enforcement are not mutually exclusive.

Lastly, the intersection of a pandemic and massive social unrest has exposed the drastic societal inequities that exist in health, wealth and opportunity. Community trauma has emerged as a core public health concept. The understanding that substance use, mental health, illness, crime and poverty stem from adverse childhood experiences and baked-in inequities is now a guiding principle for public health funders and practitioners alike. This enlightened perspective brings forth the potential of directing money and resources to root causes. It facilitates new partnerships between social justice and public health advocates. These are big wins for the future of public health, with broad implications for successfully addressing our nation’s most intractable public health problems.

We are entering 2021 with a new lens. The new year brings with it the opportunity to harness the energy born out of this year’s struggle, with a renewed understanding of the link between public health, social justice, and economic opportunity. There is widespread agreement that this energy needs to translate into sweeping policy change. Like never before, we must attempt to lift up disaffected communities and implement crucial reforms that have for decades been neglected. The political will exists. Now let’s see what we can accomplish with it.

Author:
Brenda Simmons
CEO/President, IPS

Brenda Simmons is CEO/President of the Institute for Public Strategies, a Southern California-based nonprofit that works alongside communities to build power, challenge systems of inequity, protect health and improve quality of life.

Up in Smoke: Marijuana is Erasing Decades of Progress Toward Smoke-Free Environments

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Download ‘Up in Smoke’ Infographic.

A recent Los Angeles countywide survey of 13,500 residents revealed pervasive public exposure to marijuana* smoke in parks, schools, apartment buildings, business complexes and outdoor spaces. Completed in 2019 by the LA County Prevention Provider Network, the survey found, for adults ages 26 and up:

  • 77% reported smelling marijuana in adjacent apartments (21% all the time)
  • 76% reported smelling marijuana in parks (22% all the time)
  • 75% reported smelling marijuana in business complexes (16% all the time)
  • 70% reported smelling marijuana in schools.

Youth were no exception. Seventeen percent of youth respondents reported exposure to marijuana in public all the time and 14% reported frequently.

The findings indicate a dramatic reversal to the years of progress that reduced California residents’ exposure to secondhand smoke. Before the legalization of recreational marijuana, California was considered America’s non-smoking section. In 1995, it was the first state to ban smoking tobacco in nearly every workplace and indoor public spaces. In the following years, the ban extended to restaurants, bars, taverns, and gaming clubs.

More recently, in 2016, California enacted multiple tobacco control laws that closed loopholes in the state’s smoke-free laws, including defining e-cigarettes as a tobacco product and prohibiting vaping wherever smoking is not allowed. For decades, the state’s strong tobacco laws were widely considered to have protected people – and youth in particular – from secondhand smoke.

Today, the tide seems to be turning. Public health experts cite two primary concerns about pervasive public exposure to marijuana smoke. For one, research shows that secondhand marijuana smoke contains many of the same cancer-causing substances and toxic chemicals as tobacco smoke and can create harmful cardiovascular health effects, including atherosclerosis, heart attack, and stroke.

“Smoke is smoke. Both tobacco and marijuana smoke impair blood vessel function similarly,” said Matthew Springer, cardiovascular researcher and associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Additionally, the normalization of marijuana smoke could influence youth use. Research shows the more marijuana use is seen as normal, the more likely youth are to try it. A 2014 survey by ABC News Radio found that three times the number of youths whose parents smoked marijuana reported smoking it themselves (72%). Only 20% of youth respondents reported smoking marijuana whose parents didn’t smoke. A 2017 study published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine found that teens mentioned the widespread use of marijuana by people they know and its legalization as evidence that marijuana is not harmful. According to the study, “the findings suggest that normalization of marijuana use is taking place.”

Beyond the public health implications, the LA County survey found marijuana smoke is bothersome. Seventy-three percent of respondents indicated some measure of annoyance, reporting marijuana smoke bothered them extremely (31%), very much (17%), moderately (14%), or slightly (11%).

These issues become more pressing as increasing numbers of states change their marijuana laws. In last month’s election, voters in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota legalized marijuana for recreational use, joining the 11 states that had already done so. Policymakers in those states could look to California as a bellwether for what’s ahead.

So what can be done about it?

First, if a state legalizes marijuana, state and local jurisdictions should move quickly to define smoking to include the smoking of marijuana as well as the use of electronic smoking devices. New laws must be clear and comprehensive to avoid loopholes. In March 2019, for example, LA County expanded its smoke-free laws by clearly articulating its existing ban on tobacco products at beaches, parks, and government buildings, including electronic cigarettes and marijuana.

Second, the public must be educated on new smoking laws and on the true impact of marijuana smoke. While misinformation about secondhand marijuana smoke abounds, the data in an ever-emerging research landscape makes clear that secondhand marijuana smoke has negative health impacts. Smoke-free laws that include marijuana will better protect workers and the public from all forms of secondhand smoke and vapor.

Third, public health professionals must always be at the ready to push back on the motivated, profit-oriented marijuana industry. According to the Non-Smoker’s Rights Foundation, marijuana industry representatives could use tactics from the tobacco playbook, including loosening terms like “public” in ways more favorable to their purposes of normalizing marijuana use everywhere.

The truth is, a safe public environment is 100% smoke-free. It is possible to return to the clean air gains that were made with a renewed commitment in 2021 – by engaging health partners, the public and legislators at the state, county, and local levels. Let’s get to work.

* IPS’s corporate standard is to use the term ‘cannabis.’ For the purposes of this Hot Topic, IPS is reflecting the language used in the L.A. County Marijuana Public Smoking Initiative.

Author:
Sarah Blanch
Vice President of Organizational Development, IPS

Sarah is responsible for developing and implementing tactical plans that support the vision, mission, goals and growth of the agency. Sarah leads IPS projects in Los Angeles County, where she oversees the implementation of policy-focused initiatives intended to improve public health and safety throughout the City and County of Los Angeles.

Substance Abuse Is A Public Health Issue, Yet Sketchy Policies Have Ruined Many POC Lives

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As seen on Blavity.

The blame lies not just with policy makers, but with us all for buying into the false narrative that substance misuse is a moral failing of ethnic minorities.

The United States passed its first substance abuse policy 100 years ago, the Harrison Act. It regulated opiates and cocaine. Prior to that time, drugs had been considered a public health problem to be dealt with by the medical profession. But by the turn of the century, the mood of the country had changed. Spurred on by a storm of controversy in the media, often reaching the level of public outrage, many more laws were passed in the following years. These included landmark legislation such as the prohibition of alcohol in 1920 and President Richard Nixon’s “War on Drugs” in the 1970s.

To be sure, the concern over alcohol and drugs has always been real. Then as now, these problems have had a devastating impact on individuals as well as communities. And we are still struggling to deal with the fallout today. But America’s substance abuse policies were never really designed to address the issue. From its inception, the driving force behind these laws, more than anything else, has been a phobic reaction to uncontrolled immigration and the proliferation of minorities. The overall impact of those laws has not been a reduction in substance abuse, but the subjugation of minorities and people of color.

The Harrison Act is a prime example. There was much rhetoric at the time about the dangers of smoking opium, how it would lead to prostitution and other crimes. But the real concern was over who was using the drug — the growing population of Chinese immigrants who had originally come to America after the Gold Rush of 1849. Combined with fears of unemployment among white Americans, this also led to a series of Exclusion Acts that placed a moratorium on Chinese immigration.

As with opium, alcohol had been a problem long before any laws against it were passed. By 1830, the average American over 15 years old consumed almost seven gallons of alcohol a year — three times as much as we drink today. Also, in a time when women had few rights, there were problems with drunken husbands abusing their wives. So, America’s “Temperance Movement,” which was formed about this time, sought to ban alcohol consumption entirely.

But the movement gained little traction until the turn of the century when a group called the Anti-Saloon League, supported by the Ku Klux Klan, launched an aggressive media campaign based on anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant fervor. Focusing on wholesomeness and family values, they published fake news stories about white women raped by Black men who were unable to control themselves under the influence of alcohol.

Much the same strategy was used in the campaign against cannabis, only this time it was directed at immigrants from Mexico who came here to escape the Mexican Civil War. Stories in the media warned about the “killer Weed” inciting violent crimes, arousing a “lust for blood,” and giving its users “superhuman strength.” They changed its name to “Marihuana” to link it to the Mexican immigrants and claimed that they were distributing it to unsuspecting American schoolchildren.

In the 1980s, the focus turned to crack cocaine, which had been plaguing low-income, Black and Latinx inner city neighborhoods. Ignoring the economic policies that led to disparities in such neighborhoods, President Ronald Reagan’s administration blamed all their ills on drug use and allocated $1.7 billion for enforcement programs. Policies passed in subsequent years included harsher penalties for using drugs, with Black and brown people targeted for arrest and prosecution. As a result, 90% of state prisoners sentenced for drug crimes have been Black or Latinx, even though they used and sold drugs at the same rates as whites.

In more recent years, as the science of substance abuse prevention has advanced, policies have become more progressive. For example, while conducting enforcement operations, San Diego County’s Methamphetamine Strike Force has diverted drug users into treatment rather than sending them to jail. Even the federal government has taken a more enlightened approach in dealing with the opioid epidemic, indicting pharmaceutical companies for promoting the drug and allocating funds for research, prevention and treatment.

But the fact remains that throughout the 20th century, substance abuse policy has been used as a tool to turn public opinion against people of color and preserve the dominance of white America. The blame lies not just with policy makers, but with us all for buying into the false narrative that substance misuse is a moral failing of ethnic minorities who deserve to be treated as criminals and isolated from the rest of society.

Author:
Brenda Simmons
CEO/President, IPS

Brenda Simmons began her career at IPS in 2003 as a community organizer in San Diego County. She was promoted multiple times before she was elevated to CEO/President in April 2019. She has a broad range of experience working in very conservative rural and frontier communities in Montana, ultra-progressive communities including Los Angeles and West Hollywood, and everything in between. Brenda has been involved in projects ranging in focus from substance abuse prevention to community revitalization to child-sex trafficking. As CEO, Brenda oversees more than a dozen IPS projects in Southern California.

Covid-19 Effects Election

Voters are Being Disenfranchised During COVID. What Can We Do About It?

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First, it was images of mailboxes being carted away in pick-up trucks, then states limiting ballot drop boxes to one per county. Now real-time court rulings are changing voting processes and procedures even though voting has already started. All of this is causing alarm, confusion, and hardship. To many, it represents a new tactic from an old playbook – a decades-long practice of suppressing the vote.

Before the 1960s, states often used Jim Crow laws, including literacy tests and poll taxes, to block Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, and naturalized citizens from voting. While the Voting Rights Act of 1965 brought these practices to an end, deeming them illegal, Barack Obama’s election in 2008 after record voter turnout stirred the pot. By the end of his first term, no less than 27 voter suppression measures were passed or implemented in 19 states.

These measures were the precursor to the 2013 U. S. Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 5 in the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for critical discriminatory practices, including racial gerrymandering. States like Florida took advantage of a weak Voting Rights Act. The legislature passed a law requiring Floridians with a criminal record to pay all fines, fees, and restitution owed in connection with their sentence before being eligible to vote, essentially threatening hundreds of thousands of ex-felons with criminal prosecution if they voted.

These and countless other examples illustrate a pattern of coordinated and intentional efforts to make voting harder – sometimes impossible – for specific segments of the electorate, dating back centuries.

Here in October 2020, we find ourselves at the intersection of two momentous events: a global pandemic and a fraught presidential election. Sadly, the same populations historically targeted by suppression efforts are also disproportionately dying from coronavirus exposure: Blacks, Latinos, and low-income Americans. When voting in person could threaten their very lives, a deadly public health crisis is being leveraged to disenfranchise these same populations. Bringing them into the process means offering ways for all eligible Americans to cast their vote without being forced to travel far or stand in long polling lines.

Logical remedies allow for the full utilization of remote voting options. Despite claims that mail-in ballots lead to fraudulent voting by ineligible individuals, the truth is that this type of fraud is almost nonexistent. An extensive review by Professor Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School found 31 cases of impersonation fraud out of more than 1 billion ballots cast from 2000 to 2014. Still, while wide-spread mail-in ballots are a step in the right direction, voting by mail is threatened by a weakened U.S. Postal Service.

So, now that voting is well underway in most states, what can be done? States must be vigilant and proactive in widely publicizing voting options in simple terms, with clear instructions on voting requirements. Such publicity is even more critical if court rulings result in last-minute changes to voting procedures. Rural and traditionally disenfranchised communities must have easy access to ballot drop boxes. States should provide a system for voters to monitor the receipt and acceptance of their ballot. Communities can support local voting rights groups that are actively engaging in the courts to attempt to stop voter suppression efforts, as was just done in Texas.

And Congress must continue to do whatever it can to support the USPS in the timely and successful delivery of an unprecedented volume of mail-in ballots.

Voting is the cornerstone of our democratic process, and right now, it is no exaggeration to say that the ability of all eligible voters to participate in the November election is under grave threat. During this pandemic, at this moment, we must rise to the challenge. We must learn from history’s lessons. We must bring the vulnerable and disenfranchised into the voting process. Can we? Our democracy depends on it.

Census Buttons

Think the census is no big deal? Think again.

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While all eyes are on the Democratic National Convention and the official coming out party for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, let’s not forget about the looming deadline for the 2020 U.S. Census. It will determine how the maps are drawn for redistricting for the House of Representatives and influence the political make-up of Congress in 2022. It could possibly be the most important census ever.

Since the first census in 1790, led by then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, the decennial census count has been a backbone of our democracy. In addition to accurately helping to divide 435 congressional seats among the states, census results are also used to fairly distribute more than $1.5 trillion in federal funding annually.

This federal funding helps makes up state general fund revenues, including funding for public health programs.

The census is required to count every person residing in the U.S. — citizens, non-citizen legal residents and unauthorized residents. Our democratic process depends on a fair and accurate census count.

The 2020 Census is particularly challenged by the global coronavirus pandemic, threats to undocumented immigrants and their families, political influence in the counting process, as well as security problems with the first largely online census.

Experts fear serious under counts would invite lawsuits that could cripple the reallocation of Congressional seats and redistricting process, as well as drain public trust in this core function of government. Any loss in faith in the census – for any reason — would bring lasting damage.

We must be vigilant to make sure that we obtain as fair and accurate a census count as possible.

The last census was believed to be most accurate census yet. But while it was accurate, was it fair? The 2010 census was only off by .1%, but hiding in that small overall error were much larger errors miscounting groups of people. Non-Hispanic whites were over counted by almost 1% nationally, while Blacks were under counted by about 2%. Hispanic people were under counted by 1.5% and other groups were under counted even more.

One of the biggest challenges to the current census has been frequent delays to comply with virus protocols. While the COVID-19 pandemic does not seem to hamper online responses, it has caused delays in interviews by phone, and by-mail census efforts — because social distance requirements have limited the number of staff in both. And virus protocols and the concerns about virus exposure among those being surveyed may significantly hamper the in-person survey process.

Two years ago the administration pushed to get a citizenship question added to the census. A coalition of 17 states, Washington, D.C., and six cities filed a lawsuit to block it. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately disallowed the addition of the question without further information, so it was not included.

After losing that fight, the administration directed the Census Bureau to gather and provide citizenship data. The effort to not only add this question, but to aggressively go after undocumented immigrants has sewn fear in many undocumented residents and their families. This will make it even harder to count minorities that have already been traditionally under counted.

While the Census Bureau has previously been rigidly nonpartisan, it recently announced that is it creating two new top-level positions—both of which are political appointees. This push by the administration is the latest effort raising concerns among civil liberties advocates that is subjugating the census results.

The 2020 census is the first to be conducted largely online, raising new data security challenges. In fact, the Government Accountability Office identified such risks in a 2019 report and demanded the Census Bureau fix “fundamental cloud security deficiencies.” In February of this year, a GAO report called out that while the Bureau had made progress, they still needed to address serious cyber security weaknesses and concerns.

We must act now. The counting deadline has been moved up to the end of September. Let’s not allow that to detract from importance.

We must take swift actions to remedy potential problems with the census and ensuing results. 

First, lawmakers should demand the removal of political appointees from the nonpartisan Census Bureau. Such appointments only threaten not only the accuracy and fairness of the census, but undermine public trust in the results and in our government as a whole.

The Census Bureau should undertake advertising campaigns in multiple languages to assure affected populations that no citizenship question will appear on the 2020 Census and that information they provide to the census cannot be used against them.

The government should broadcast its commitment to maintain census confidentiality and put in place stronger safeguards against misuse.

The census is under threat and with it our fair representation in Congress and access to more than $1.5 trillion in federal funding. Compromising the fairness and accuracy of the census or allowing the Bureau to become politicized threatens to undermine our democratic process and institutions, and thereby the trust of and connection with the U.S. public.

We must do whatever we can to ensure the 2020 Census is fair and accurate. The vitality of our country depends upon it.

Author:
Paul Levikow
Media Advocacy Specialist, IPS

Paul Levikow is a Media Advocacy Specialist for the East County and South Bay regions in San Diego.  Mr. Levikow previously worked for several years as a print and broadcast journalist as well as a communications director and public affairs officer for county government. 

Geospacial Solutions

Transform Communities Using Geospatial Solutions

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As seen on GovLoop.

Since 1992, the Institute for Public Strategies (IPS) advances the health and safety of communities throughout the country and Mexico. The agency looks at policies and systems that play a role in alcohol and other drug (AOD) abuse, and factors that lead to crime and blight in neighborhoods. They work with communities to bring fresh produce and awareness of nutrition to underserved neighborhoods. They help facilitate self-sufficient, fully engaged community members into becoming champions for their neighborhoods by giving them tools to work with policymakers effectively and strategically.

To do this, IPS created the A.C.T. Model – Approach to Community Transformation. This multiprong approach guides the agency’s efforts in working with policymakers, enforcement agencies, civic leaders, businesses, faith communities and residents to help realize the type of communities we want to live in.

Act ModelGeographic information systems (GIS) plays a large part in the success of its efforts. IPS uses this technology in all five components of the A.C.T. Model.

Data and Research

IPS’ work is evidence-informed: They rely on scientific knowledge, using a fair degree of flexibility to allow for unique conditions, to make sound decisions. The plethora of data out there is limitless. Accessing, using and interpreting the data has its challenges. GIS allows IPS to harness that data and look for trends and patterns to make sound decisions.

For its work in addressing health disparities among the Latino population in San Diego’s South Bay, IPS collected data from many different sources: health, crime, socioeconomic, education and environmental. The team then compiled the data into a geodatabase and mapped it on top of census tracts or ZIP codes to visually represent conditions in the South Bay. This decision-making tool enables the project team to identify communities most in need of intervention.

Media Advocacy

Getting IPS’ messaging into the news is key to impacting policy and systems change. Media advocacy is purposeful and strategic and not designed to only inform the public of policy impacts. Television and print news rely heavily on compelling videos, photographs and infographics, such as interactive maps, to help tell the story that the audience can relate to and empathize with.

For instance, in 2019, several college campuses around the country dealt with the tragic consequences of binge and underage drinking, particularly in fraternities. This included IPS’ own San Diego community. To put a face to each of the victims and to tell their stories, IPS created a map that pinpointed where each tragedy took place with pictures and text. The map was submitted with a news release to local media outlets to engage viewers in understanding the problem and advocating for policies at either the university administration level or the national fraternity organization level to protect college students.

Policy Buy-In and Development

Gaining support for a policy can be complicated. It requires awareness and buy-in of all stakeholders. GIS provides tools such as maps, data dashboards and story maps to help communicate policy goals in an easy-to-understand manner to stakeholders, such as decision-makers, community members, enforcement agencies and news media.

The Binge and Underage Drinking Initiative (BUDI) at IPS works on preventing harm from alcohol, especially among teens and young adults. To gain support from the harm prevention community for BUDI’s policy advocacy work, IPS created a story map to highlight the issue of alcohol problems in San Diego County and presented it at the Alcohol Policy Panel of San Diego County’s quarterly meeting. The story map combines pictures, graphs, maps and text to provide a multidimensional narrative of alcohol harm prevention efforts.

Sustainability

For a policy to succeed, it requires community awareness and regular and consistent enforcement. Compliance checks ensure that businesses, for example, are following municipality- or state-mandated regulations that keep neighborhoods free from harm. This helps keep businesses accountable and builds trust among community members.

GIS allows IPS to collect its own data to make sure policies are upheld. For example, it created an app that assesses a bar or restaurant’s compliance with the state alcohol regulatory agency’s rules on responsible beverage sales and service.

In the past, observers recorded their assessment on paper. By digitizing the assessment so that it is accessible on a mobile device, the user can discretely record their observations and immediately build upon the underlying database. The database is then used to track the policy’s enforcement over time. It also informs the AOD prevention community if a bar has done a commendable job at preventing over-service of alcohol, or if intervention is necessary to advise bar owners and managers of lapses in responsible business practices. The process is now more efficient and less cumbersome for data recorders.

Community Organizing

Communities that rally around an issue will find success when they fully understand the underlying reasons for the problems they encounter. Maps help community groups grasp how a geographic location is related to disease, crime and other threats to health and safety.

Team members in IPS’ Pomona office are food security and nutrition champions in their city. Green space and urban gardens are found to promote nutrition and physical and mental health. But what happens when children and teens do not have access to them?

To answer this question, IPS first mapped out the locations of healthy food sources (farmer’s markets, urban gardens, fresh food markets, etc.) and fast food restaurants. The locations’ proximity to a local middle school was symbolized through different colored lines – blue for healthy and nutritious sources, red for unhealthy fast food. The resulting map showed that the red lines were shorter than the blue lines, meaning more fast food restaurants were closer to the middle school than healthy food sources. This demonstrated that students were at an increased risk of dietary problems and resulting diseases, because healthy foods were not as accessible as non-healthy options. Visualizing the data this way prompted support for establishing more urban gardens near the school and nutrition education at the school.

Because GIS is both an art and a science, IPS continues to promote healthy and safe communities by leveraging the technology’s creative and analytical tools, making this dynamic system appealing to anyone who has a stake in envisioning a brighter future for their communities.

Author:
Meredith Gibson
Media Director, IPS

Meredith Gibson is the Media Director for the Binge and Underage Drinking Initiative, Countywide Media Advocacy Project, and Partnerships for Success. She generates news articles to promote awareness of public health issues, collaborates on opinion editorials (op-eds) with community leaders, and pitches ideas and spokespersons to news outlets, amassing media coverage at the local and national levels.

Social Justice

5 Questions that Incorporate Racial Equity into Public Policy – Part 2

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As seen on GovLoop.

Policymakers must consider racial equity implications during the enforcement phase as well as the development phase of a policy. This requires an understanding of how different populations will specifically be affected when it is enforced. For instance, will its enforcement result in further harm to Black, Latinx/Hispanic, Native American, Asian and Pacific Islander people or other minority groups?

Many policies are directed toward populations that may not have equal access to social determinants of health. These are the conditions that define a person’s quality of life, from the type of physical environment they live in to the education they receive and the socioeconomic factors that contribute to their overall health. Minority groups especially may find themselves unjustly penalized because they do not have the same opportunities for a higher quality life.

For instance, this has important significance for minority groups since more non-white people are homeless per capita than white people. Laws that prohibit loitering or sleeping in a public space may not have much impact on some. But if policies do not address the underlying issues such as the housing crisis, unemployment, mental health and substance abuse that may lead to homelessness in the first place, we miss out on an opportunity to intervene in improving the well-being of those living on the streets.

In the case of homelessness, enforcing a no-loitering policy should also come with a remedy for mitigating the reason someone is unsheltered.

When considering racial equity in the enforcement of a policy, it helps for decision-makers to consider the following questions:

1) Are resources in place to equitably enforce the policy?

Funding for staff and infrastructure must be equitably accessible to all populations. Here, it is necessary to distinguish between “equality” and “equity.” Equality is when everybody receives the same amount of resources. Equity is when everybody receives the resources specific to their circumstances to achieve the same opportunity.

In this situation, staffing and infrastructure must be determined based on the individual community’s needs that the policy serves, recognizing that each community has different levels of resources.

2) Are sanctions or punishments levied equitably (not equally!) across populations?

If an individual who is low-income, for instance, is given the choice between paying a fine or going to jail, their decision may come down to putting food on the table for their family or missing work while detained. It is easier for higher-income individuals to pay the fine, whereas lower-income individuals may wrestle with the two options, neither of which promote mental well-being. How will the policy further undermine the well-being of vulnerable populations?

3) Is the community aware of the policy and how it will be enforced?

Community awareness of a policy ensures that there is a clear understanding of its objectives and impacts. It establishes expectations and the accountability of enforcers for equitable enforcement. It also helps achieve buy-in and support from the community.

4) Who will be harmed if the policy is not enforced equitably?

Failure to enforce regulations equitably across all populations means that some communities will remain disadvantaged.

For example, environmental laws put a cap on the amount of pollutants that can be released into the air. However, often due to a lack of enforcement of these laws, people who live close to factories and industrial areas experience higher rates of respiratory problems and other negative health outcomes. Not surprisingly, low income minority groups are often the ones that live close to polluters. High income white people, on the other hand, live farther away and therefore have fewer health problems.

5) Is the policy flexible enough to allow for changes if data and evaluation show that enforcement is ineffective?

Data is key in determining if enforcement is working or if it produces inequitable conditions. Policies may include evaluation metrics that trigger a shift or halt to implementation and enforcement.

Rather than scrapping an ineffective policy altogether, small tweaks may produce a much more desirable (and economically efficient) outcome based on changing conditions. Metrics should take into account population-specific outcomes.

Equitable enforcement of policies results in healthier communities. When policies are equitably enforced, minority groups are given the same opportunities as white people to achieve optimal health, creating more fairness in the distribution of resources.

Author:
Meredith Gibson
Media Director, IPS

Meredith Gibson is the Media Director for the Binge and Underage Drinking Initiative, Countywide Media Advocacy Project, and Partnerships for Success. She generates news articles to promote awareness of public health issues, collaborates on opinion editorials (op-eds) with community leaders, and pitches ideas and spokespersons to news outlets, amassing media coverage at the local and national levels.

Social Justice

5 Questions That Incorporate Racial Equity Into Public Policy – Part I

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As seen on GovLoop.

When developing public policies, racial equity should be considered from the very beginning.

‘Equity’ is a state where everyone can achieve optimal health, well-being and happiness, where no one is denied this ability due to race or socioeconomic status. By contrast, ‘inequity’ is an avoidable consequence of public policies that favor one group over another.

This month, Americans celebrated our independence. We were reminded of our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The majority of the population has enjoyed these rights since the beginning of our country. For others, however, especially communities of colors, these rights have not been easily attainable, if at all. Centuries of policies were created and enforced with implicit or explicit biases that prevented them from living the kind of lives they desired.

Now as our nation is reckoning with systemic racial inequities, whether it is from disparate health outcomes due to COVID-19 or the call for police reform due to racially charged events, agencies from all sectors are taking a practical and closer look at policies that create a more equitable society. Racial equity tools are guides that evaluate policies with the goal of benefiting everyone, not just a select few.

Considerations into racial equity can be incorporated into both the development and enforcement phases of a policy. Here are questions that agency staff can use to guide a principled approach to public policy development.

1) Does a policy that ensures racial equity exist? Does an existing one need to be revised to incorporate a fair chance for everyone to achieve the same benefit?

For example, Black people are more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people, despite equal rates of use. Black people are less likely to have charges dropped than white people. Once prosecuted, they are also more likely to go to jail.

Arrest records can have a substantial impact on a person’s ability to achieve quality of life, such as eligibility for financial aid, employment or public housing. This can lead to further health deteriorations for Black people.

2) Are all stakeholders identified who should be part of the decision-making process?

A good policy analysis looks at an issue from multiple angles. Will it have the buy-in of community members, enforcement agencies, business owners, property managers, faith leaders, school officials, urban planners and all other parties that the policy will impact?

For instance, liquor licenses are a hot topic in communities, often pitting the economic needs of businesses against the health and safety of residents and other business owners. Overconcentration of alcohol outlets and other types of ‘high risk’ businesses are often found in minority communities, where often, there are those who may not feel they have the political clout to weigh in on decisions or do not have the knowledge on how to do so. Municipalities that include a public comment period can hear from a variety of voices either in support of or against a proposed business license.

3) What parts of society will be impacted by the policy, from populations served (and underserved) to the required infrastructure to implement and enforce the policy? Who will and will not have access to the benefits of the policy?

Policies often have unintended consequences, and decision-makers should take strides to consider as many as possible and have a plan for mitigation. This is also the reason for involving the perspective of a wide range of stakeholders.

4) What inherent biases can undermine a policy?

Bias can lead to blind enforcement of policies that unjustly penalize minorities. Racial profiling, or bias-based policing, is one case. The War on Drugs is another example of a policy that disproportionately targeted African Americans, resulting in soaring arrest rates. These two policies also have the unfortunate consequence of undermining law enforcement efforts to create partnerships with the communities they are assigned to protect.

5) What does the data say about the proposed policy?

Policies should always be evidence-informed. Decision-makers should consider the community conditions and demographics by looking at data, such as the American FactFinder and U.S. Census Bureau.

Moreover, there needs to be transparency and accountability in how decision-makers arrive at policy decisions to give the community confidence that good decisions are being made.

Though centuries of systemic racism institutionalized bias into many policies at national, state and local levels, it is not too late to reverse the trend of one race benefiting while another suffers. This can happen through strategic and in-depth analyses of proposed policies, as well as the buy-in of all stakeholders.

Author:
Meredith Gibson
Media Director, IPS

Meredith Gibson is the Media Director for the Binge and Underage Drinking Initiative, Countywide Media Advocacy Program and Partnerships for Success. She generates news articles to promote awareness of public health issues, collaborates on opinion editorials (op-eds) with community leaders, and pitches ideas and spokespersons to news outlets, amassing media coverage at the local and national levels.