What've we been up to?

We know - we've been quiet lately! There's good reason for it - here are some of the great initiatives we've been busy with.

We're wrapping up a major collaborative project to learn more about how the COVID-19 pandemic affected access to healthcare in San Antonio and Bexar County. We're doing that work with San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, The Health Collaborative, the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, the Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research (IDSER) at UTSA, and the C3HIE health information exchange.

We're moving into the expansion phase of Bexar Data Dive. Not only are we still processing a wide range of data to load, but we're developing new features as well. We've added a one-question survey to the site to help us understand whether it's helpful to users, and we're in the early stages of creating a way for you to combine any census tracts or ZIP codes you want to create and pull data for a custom geography. We've also started providing trainings (free!) - more info on that below.

As we do every year, we're pulling together and analyzing data to support the work of the United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County's four Impact Councils: Ready Children, Successful Students, Strong Individuals & Families, and Safety Net. You can learn more about those Impact Councils on UWSA's website.

Working with Race and Ethnicity Data in Bexar County and Texas

We're a little under two months out from the release of the Demographic Profiles and Demographic and Housing Characteristics File, the first 2020 Decennial Census products since the P.L. 94-171 Redistricting Data Summary Files came out in fall 2021. The 2020 Census saw major changes to the way that race and ethnicity are both collected and subsequently coded. (If you're not already up to speed, it's worth taking a look at this Census blog post summarizing the changes made.) We in Bexar County and Texas may need to rethink the way we collect and work with race and ethnicity data, both on its own and to disaggregate other data.
Table of Census 2010 and 2020 race by ethnicity
This week the Census Bureau released an analysis of how people identifying as Hispanic self-report their race, and the results are fascinating. To a large extent they mirror what we see for Bexar County in the table above: among Hispanics, the percent identifying as white alone dropped by over half, with the greatest increases in the categories of Two or More Races Alone and American Indian and Alaska Native Alone.

Got any thoughts on what these changes mean for us data users and analysts? Drop a comment on the post on our website.

ICYMI:
Improving Language Access

Screengrab of COSA Language Access Tiers from SASpeakUp video

CI:Now completed a language access study for the City of San Antonio's Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Department. Working closely with Language Access Manager Emily Yaffe, CI:Now used both publicly-available data like Census PUMS and de-identified administrative datasets like the C3HIE health information exchange to understand what languages are spoken in San Antonio and Bexar County, and in what neighborhoods those languages are most common. The results are informing the City's Language Access Plan to improve community engagement and access to City resources and services. One of the project products is proposed language tiers that guide decisions about translation and interpretation in each language:
  • Tier 1 (Translation and interpretation required): Spanish and American Sign Language
  • Tier 2 (Translation recommended and interpretation upon request): Arabic, Vietnamese, and Pashto
  • Tier 3 (Translation encouraged and interpretation upon request): Korean, Tagalog, Chinese, and Gujarati
Ms. Yaffe presented summary results, the rationale for the proposed languages in each tier, and language access planning background and next steps to the City Council's Community Health, Environment, and Culture Committee in January. That video is available on SASpeakUp, and her presentation begins at about the 1:04:00 mark.

Want a Bexar Data Dive training?


We're offering Bexar Data Dive trainings at no cost, both in person and virtually. If you'd like to book a training in English or Spanish for your staff, group members, or neighbors, please get in touch!

We also have English-language brief tutorials on YouTube, and Spanish-language tutorials are coming soon.

This project is supported by the Office of Minority Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $750,000 with 100 percent funded by OMH/OASH/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, OMH/OASH/HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit www.minorityhealth.hhs.gov.

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