April 1, 2030 will be our next Census Day. Today, in anticipation of that day, we're reflecting on the remarkable impact of the Census Bureau—a cornerstone of American data transparency. Read more.
Read MoreHave you ever tried downloading data across multiple years and towns, only to encounter a bunch of steps for what should be a straightforward question? We've been there too, which is why we created and recently updated our Data by Topic tool! This new and improved platform provides convenient way to access Connecticut data at state, town, county, and planning region levels.* Explore the tool with this webinar.
Read MoreNew Data Strategic Planning June 2024 Cohort Launched! Today we got to meet with 9 organizations based in the Hartford who all met at the Lyceum to start on the journey of developing a Data Strategic Plan.
Read MoreOn Thursday, May 2, 2024, we held an event discussing the findings of our most recent research report, Promoting Equitable Pandemic Recovery for Hartford’s Young Children. We also heard about how the City of Hartford is using our findings to inform their work, discussed some other early childhood research going on at CTData, and heard from Courtney Parkerson at The Connecticut Project about the statewide RAPID survey of families with young children that has just launched.
Read MoreIn March, the Equity in Data Community of Practice learned about how to responsibly utilize census data to explore race and ethnicity. We heard from CTData’s own Cynthia Willner (Senior Research Associate) and Jason Cheung (Senior Data Analyst) who shared how race and ethnicity data is collected and how we can use it appropriately in our work. Watch the video of the session in this post.
Read MoreEach year, nonprofits and volunteer groups across the state of Connecticut engage in “get out the vote” efforts, which include encouraging eligible citizens to register to vote and encouraging registered voters to vote. However, these groups often have limited resources for “GOTV” activities, and when looking at a city such as Hartford, knowing where it might be most helpful to focus those limited resources can be a challenge. In Hartford, the Hartford Votes-Hartford Votas Coalition members hoped to address that challenge. Through a participatory engagement design, CTData partnered with the Hartford Votes Coalition to identify the data that would be most helpful for these groups and to produce a data story and dashboard that these groups could use in their GOTV efforts, engaging the GOTV groups throughout.
Read MoreIn 2021, the Community Service Block Grant team members (part of Connecticut Department of Social Services) talked with us about a challenge. The nine Community Action Agencies in Connecticut are required to conduct a Comprehensive Community Needs Assessment (CNA) every three years. These assessments are very data-heavy, and the staff who complete these assessments are not necessarily trained in data skills. To address this challenge, we developed a three-year project whose goal was to improve the quality of the CNAs by providing skill-building, data support, and a CNA template for CAA staff. Read more here.
Read MoreEach month, the Equity in Data Community of Practice meets to talk about a topic that the group has indicated is of interest to their work. Through our survey results, we know that people are eager to hear from real professionals who are actively integrating equitable principles into their everyday data work. During this session, CTData staff members share their real-world experiences, insights, and actionable strategies for weaving ethical considerations and equity into their everyday data work. Participants had the chance to talk together about what they are doing to integrate equity - to learn from one another and share lessons for the benefit of others.
Read MoreThis past summer the Equity in Data Community of Practice met to learn from the Census Bureau about how to access granular data on nationality, county of origin, and more. Many people turn to data.census.gov for data on the “standard” race and ethnicity categories. But these categories never accurately represented people from different racial groups, and this is becoming more true as the US becomes more diverse. During this meeting, Kanin Reese from the Center for Enterprise Dissemination at the Census Bureau demonstrated how we can utilize the Census Bureau’s Microdata Tool to find data about people living in our state from specific countries of origin, nationalities, languages, ethnicities, and more.
Read MoreDuring our 10th Annual CTData Conference, Bridge the Data Gaps, we explored data gaps and solutions in early childhood, Black business ownership, and more. You can see more conference videos and photos here.
Read MoreDuring our 10th Annual CTData Conference, Bridge the Data Gaps, we explored how data can be used as a tool that advances equity and respects those who have experienced racism through data collection and its use.
Read MoreEach year, the Census Bureau produces population estimates for each state and county that are different than the ACS t-year survey that many of us are used to. These are called Population Estimates, and these are the official measures of population & housing units between decennial censuses. In this conference session, you will learn about the methodology that undergirds these annual data and learn about the ways you can access the data through the US Census Bureau.
Read MoreThe Longitudinael-Employer Household Dynamics Data (LEHD) Products combines state administrative data with census data to understand various aspects of the workforce. During this conference session, we learned about several of the LEHD products, and learned how to use them. Watch the video to learn how you can use these products to inform your decision-making.
Read MoreCTData has been busy this year, growing and offering more products and services that can help you with making sound decisions with data. The links to information we shared during the session is available here. The recording will be made available below after the session.
Read MoreDo you have data that contains geographic information (town, zip code, etc.) that you have never put onto a map? What is hiding in there?
Read MoreThis article, about a group of Trinity College students that took an 87-page legal document and turned it into easy-to-read graphics that the people most affected by this agreement might be able to understand and interact with, caught the attention of many. For our June session, we had guests who supported this intriguing data work talk with us about the process they used and what they learned. We hope you find this 60 minute discussion and presentation as useful as we did. And if you’d like to learn more, we hope you’ll join us at next month’s session of the Equity in Data Community of Practice.
Read MoreCTData has been working hard to update our data and data projects to reflect the ACS 2020 data release, as well as other updated data. This month’s list includes the Connecticut SEOW Prevention Data Portal, The Women and Girls Data Platform, the Connecticut Evictions Map, and some of our data tables in Data by Topic.
Read MoreLast month, over 40 data users joined together to learn from real-life examples of equitable data practice. We heard from four group members who have attended many of the sessions we have run in the last two years. The discussion was rich, here are some of the highlights.
Read MoreAs the Census State Data Center, CTData is required to delineate the 2020 PUMA boundaries. An important component of this delineation process is to elicit community feedback from the data users in our state. We began this process in December during our conference session, “PUMAS: What are they and how you can help,” where we laid out the background of what PUMAs are and why this issue matters on our website as well as through an Op-Ed published by the CT Examiner. We also spent time creating options for the 2020 PUMAs so that data users could respond to them at a meeting we held this week. Read on to learn what was decided this week based on community input.
Read MoreThe Equity in Data Community of Practice ended the year on a high note. Our final session on December 21, 2021, was filled with lively discussion, interesting ideas, and data nerds!
We discussed our key takeaways from our previous session, the Do No Harm with Data Viz session of the CTData Conference 2021 and talked about what we’d like to do as a group in 2022.
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