Moving from Data to Action

Data are power–and data can empower communities with knowledge to drive transformational change. 

Data help us describe—and quantify—the communities in which we live, work, and play and give us the information we need for local decision-making, policy development, resource allocation, and advocacy. Communities often rely on data about their strengths, assets, opportunities, and needs to inform their position and make their case. Data can also affect broader change by supporting transformative systems change data and shifting power toward community.

Data for Systems Transformation

Data play an essential role in community improvement, helping stewards make their case for policy, systems and environmental changes that transformative our systems for health and equity. Stewards use data in the following ways to drive systems tranformation.

Inform priorities and positions

Data provide background on community conditions and local health and well-being priorities. Stewards use such data to shed light on issues, foster advocacy efforts, and develop policy.

Strengthen strategies

Stewards use data to inform and strengthen their strategies for community improvement, leading better and more sustainable results.

Connect with community

Data are a natural touch-point for community: community may be engaged in data collection and sense-making, and moreover, data can be leveraged for power. Stewards engage community around data while simultaneously advancing community ownership and supporting data collection activities.

Demonstrate impact and effectiveness

Data are used to show the impact of our efforts and their effectiveness. Stewards use such data to make their case for new or continued funding and expanding or modifying current efforts

Change narratives

Data are often used when communicating about people, their health and the communities in which they live. Stewards use data in their narrative change efforts which have the power to change hearts and minds that stand in the way of progress.

Communities in Context recognizes the power of systems transformation. It uses the Vital Conditions Framework to center thinking on systems and see opportunities for improving vital community conditions.

Stewards use the following strategies to multi-solve for belonging and civic muscle while building community power.

Grow Data Capacities
Advance Data Access and Sharing
Promote Community Ownership of Data
Data literacy is a concept that deals with the knowledge and skills to understand and use data. Through data literacy and sharing, we can promote more equitable community data systems and a vibrant data democracy.
Data sharing is the act of making data available to people, organizations, stakeholders, and/or other partners. Data-sharing efforts often serve to build relationships between partners and set the stage for ongoing shared stewardship. Data sharing fosters collaboration, responsibility, and transparency, which improves communication and fosters the trust necessary to bring about long-lasting change.
Community ownership of data builds civic capacity, belonging, and civic muscle, and shifts power toward communities--importantly marginalized communities and communities of color. Community ownership refers to data that are owned and controlled by the community from which they were collected. When communities own their data, they gain control over their information and how the data are collected, used, and shared. Community ownership of data:
  • Promotes community self-determination;
  • Builds community trust and fosters stewardship and collaboration;
  • Addresses information asymmetry;
  • Ensures data collection and analysis has cultural relevance and context; and
  • Sustainably builds local capacity and fosters long-term engagement.

Belonging, Civic Muscle, and Community Power-Building

Data can transform systems when they multisolve for belonging and civic muscle, and build community power in the process.

  • Belonging: Data can make visible the experiences, assets, contributions, opportunities, challenges, and inequities facing people and communities.
  • Civic muscle: Civic muscle is built when community comes together to collect data, share data, make sense of data, and use data for change-making.
  • Community power: Community power or community power sharing is the ultimate goal

Communities in Context sought to center community in the data work. Learn more about how community was engaged here. This resulted in housing and mental health and well-being as priorities for the project.

Explore More

Skip to content