Joe Gordon is pretty matter of fact about the work he does as a data analyst in Metro's Data Resource Center and the role he played leading the development of a tool that is bringing equity to emergency preparedness planning, policies and investments.
He says things like, "but those are just my philosophical ramblings," and tempers some of his other ideas like building bridges "from the cubicle to the community," and appreciating one's own "horizon of ignorance," by saying they should be featured on a bumper sticker or a t-shirt.
But Joe's kidding aside, the tool he project-managed for two years, the Social Vulnerability Explorer (SVE), is helping emergency planners and community members better understand the specific neighborhoods in greater Portland that have difficulty accessing emergency services and programs because of deep and longstanding inequities.
"The fact of the matter is the more vulnerable communities in the future are the ones that are most vulnerable now," Joe said.
The SVE builds on the Equity Focus Areas that were developed as part of the 2018 Regional Transportation Plan. Those focus areas were informed by three data sets, one describing Black, Indigenous, and people of color populations, one describing English proficiency populations, and one describing income demographics.
The SVE pulls together additional indicators from many more sources, including data sets from the Census, American Community Survey, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Department of Education, Homeland Infrastructure Foundation Level Data, and voter turnout data. It also provides a broader regional perspective by adding Columbia and Clark counties and brings in more rural communities by including all of Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties, not just their urban areas.
"There's just a lot of ways inequities are manifested – age, health conditions, income, language, being a part of a historically marginalized community – the intersection of those things is the important part," Joe said. "The tool allows people to explore and crosstab different data sets from different sources to learn new relationships and ask new questions so we can better understand and serve the communities in our region," Joe said.
One of the SVE's first uses is to help evaluate which communities are, and aren't, served by emergency transportation systems. This analysis is informing future projects that will facilitate region-wide movement of emergency responders and recovery and aid supplies. In its next version, the tool will be used to predict how specific communities might be impacted by emergency events – things like wildfires, floods and extreme heat.
These new insights are possible both because of more sophisticated data and how technical experts and community partners helped refine the data. More than 40 emergency management and human and health services professionals helped refine the tool by providing feedback on its functionality, and Joe consulted with community-based organizations to bring nuance to the numbers, including the Coalition of Communities of Color, the American Association of Retired Persons, the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, the Native American Youth and Family Center, and with houseless and disability community advocates.
"This was the first time I was the guy doing the data stuff and talking directly with community members saying, 'This is what we were doing, are we missing something, is there something you're experiencing on the ground that you're not seeing in the data?'" Joe said.
Because the SVE is online and available to everyone, Joe is getting out in front of community organizations and providing some basic training so they can use the tool for their own purposes.
"This tool allows you to stack the data to build a case," Joe explained. "And if members of a community-based organization working in the 82nd Avenue or Tualatin Valley Highway transportation corridor wants demographic data to put into a grant application, they can essentially do that themselves."
Joe sums up the intent behind developing the SVE – opening up and consolidating more data sources and empowering users to drive its innovation – in his understated way.
"We're just trying to do the right thing, to better serve all of our communities," Joe said. "You know, 'Do unto others.'"
Sounds like another great idea for a t-shirt.