We’re excited to announce our new community initiative: a groundbreaking $1.2 million data ecosystem to address racial and health inequities in Multnomah County.
Through the Modernized Anti-Racist Data Ecosystems (MADE) for Health Justice grant, the Community Data for Health and Environmental Justice is a transformative collaborative initiative focused on paving the way for equity-centered local climate and environmental justice planning and policy development.
In partnership with the Multnomah County Health Department, the Multnomah County Office of Sustainability and the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, we are spearheading the effort to revolutionize Portland’s environmental justice landscape.
“We have known for a long time that climate change and pollution are not affecting all of us equally,” said Marcus C. Mundy, Executive Director for Coalition of Communities of Color. “A strong data ecosystem built by and for our communities will help us cultivate justice in a changing climate.”
Portland’s data ecosystem will seek to strengthen the resilience of marginalized and frontline communities in the context of climate impacts.
Funded by the de Beaumont Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the MADE for Health Justice initiative aims to accelerate the development of health-focused local data systems that center principles of anti-racism, equity, justice, and community power. Portland is one of only four communities from across the U.S. selected to participate.
“Data are a powerful force that drives our health, whether we realize it or not,” said Jamila Porter, DrPH, MPH, principal investigator for MADE for Health Justice and Chief of Staff at de Beaumont. “To ensure data are a force for good, we need to create data ecosystems — dynamic collections of information that center and uplift the needs of the most marginalized. We’re excited to partner with communities across the nation that have taken on this challenge.”
This is a three-year collaboration with the first phase in the program scheduled to launch as early as next month.
“We are ready and excited to partner with the Coalition of Communities of Color and Multnomah County to implement this bold, community-led approach to create a data ecosystem that supports Portlanders most adversely impacted by the climate crisis,” said Donnie Oliveira, Director for the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
For more information, contact Jen Samperio at jen@coalitioncommunitiescolor.org.