[Excerpt from article by Paul Basken, April 20, 2023]
“Universities clearly do provide major financial benefits to the areas where they are based, said one expert, Mark Abraham, the executive director of DataHaven, a non-profit organisation in the state of Connecticut that helps local communities assess their performance. […]
DataHaven is based just off the Yale University campus, and Mr Abraham noted the recent sale of a less-than-one-acre parcel of land in New Haven for $11 million (£9 million) – for the construction of a $220 million life sciences real estate venture on behalf of the UK-based pension and insurance fund Legal & General – as a typical example of the great economic power of US higher education.
“However, beyond some point, economic growth is not correlated to well-being. The distribution of resources and the structure of society is more important to quality of life than whether GDP is rising quickly or not.”
DataHaven will be closed June 20, 2022 in observance of Juneteenth, in commemoration of the delayed liberation of enslaved Black people on June 19, 1865, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
Equity is central to our mission, and DataHaven is committed to ensuring access to information on the impact of the legacy of racist policies that continue to affect the health and well-being of Black residents in neighborhoods and towns across Connecticut.
During this holiday, and beyond, consider donating to Bridgeport Generation Now, Black Lives Matter New Haven, The Black Infinity Collective, Hearing Youth Voices in New London, and many other organizations committed to advancing equity for Black residents in Connecticut; shopping and dining at Black-owned establishments; and continuing to learn more about the legacy of racism in America, and the role of data to amplify Black voices (we recommend W.E.B. Dubois’ Visualizing Black America, Ida B. Wells’ The Red Record, and the national organization Data for Black Lives).
You are invited to join the Advisory Council for our 2021 statewide survey!
The DataHaven Community Wellbeing Survey completed live, in-depth interviews with 34,000 randomly-selected adults in every town in Connecticut in 2015, 2018, and 2020, producing robust local-level data on the issues most relevant to community well-being that are not available from any other public data source. This survey will be fielded again in 2021, with support from public and private partners throughout Connecticut.
Our Advisory Council is a critical element of this program. All public agencies, institutions, and community-based organizations in Connecticut are invited to join the Council and help us select topics to include in this year’s survey (there is no cost to join). Last year over 125 organizations participated. Please visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2021DataHavenAdvisoryCouncil to register, provide initial feedback, and submit ideas. We encourage you to share this link with your agency or community partners, including advocacy organizations in your area. Responses are requested by noon on Thursday, February 11. The Advisory Council will be invited to provide additional comments and feedback on the survey design after that date.
New Resident-Led Documentary Films
In the latest installment in our Powering Healthy Lives video series (ctdatahaven.org/video), DataHaven and Purple States have worked with local partners to produce three resident-driven documentary films focusing on Hartford, New Haven, and the Lower Naugatuck Valley area of Connecticut. Check out the new documentaries below, and learn more about the project on our website.
- Hartford – Opioids and health disparities: Latinas: https://youtu.be/GFLnIQeEPRc
- New Haven – Heart disease and health disparities: Making healthy food affordable https://youtu.be/-qLa1H7V16E
- Valley – Heart disease and economic change: supporting healthy behaviors: https://youtu.be/_sHI–OGe38
View all of our video stories here.
New Data Stories
DataHaven Executive Director, Mark Abraham and colleagues in the CT Mirror: State must center health equity in Connecticut’s health information exchange
- “This pandemic has shown us the state needs to accelerate its work to create a full-fledged and operational health information exchange (HIE). It is more important than ever that we ground any health information system in the concerns of equity. Otherwise, we will never know what is really happening on the ground or in the streets, nor be able to construct policies that truly improve people’s lives in the places where they are most needed.” said Mark Abraham, Executive Director of DataHaven.
DataHaven Research Assistants, Aparna Nathan and Numi Katz in the CT Mirror: Eviction moratoriums not enough to protect family and child well-being
- “The new study shows we must restructure housing relief policy. Well before evictions are filed, housing insecurity has already had a devastating effect on child well-being. Interventions need to happen before that time.”
Congratulations to DataHaven Board Member Maritza Bond! https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/maritza_bond_new_havener_of_the_year/
- Bond was recently honored as “New Havener of the Year”! Read more about her accolades in the New Haven Independent.
Read below for an excerpt from our semi-annual newsletter, released in August 2015. The newsletter also contained links to the many new reports that DataHaven has published. Contact us to sign up for the full newsletter!
In May, DataHaven received the annual award for organizational excellence from The Consultation Center, a local nonprofit affiliated with the Yale School of Medicine’s Psychiatry Department and dedicated to promoting health and wellness. The award honored DataHaven’s outstanding efforts to harness public data to support community development.
DataHaven’s Executive Director, Mark Abraham, was appointed to the Advisory Council of Healthy Connecticut 2020: The Connecticut State Health Improvement Plan. Along with leaders from public and private organizations throughout the state, Abraham will join these ambassadors and educators of Healthy Connecticut 2020 and related initiatives.
DataHaven gave two presentations at the annual meeting of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership in Pittsburgh. Along with representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of Texas, Mark Abraham spoke at a plenary session about community data and hospitals. Additionally, Mary Buchanan shared our new immigration report at the conference’s opening session.
Guided by an advisory committee of local stakeholders, we helped release a new report commissioned by the Valley Community Foundation that described the area’s demographics, community health, and economic and educational opportunities. DataHaven is working on a more comprehensive analysis of the region, to be published in 2016.
Our colleagues at the South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG) received the Greater New Haven NAACP’s annual award for supporting “How Transportation Problems Keep People Out of the Workforce in Greater New Haven,” a report produced by DataHaven this year on behalf of NAACP, SCRCOG, and Workforce Alliance.
Our Executive Director, Mark Abraham, shared DataHaven’s work at the NYU School of Medicine’s monthly Population Health Research Seminar in New York City, at the World Health Organization age-friendly community pilot site meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, and at the Connecticut Early Childhood Funders Collaborative’s Working Together to Improve Child Outcomes Using Data event. Over the next two months, DataHaven staff will be featured as speakers at the 8th Annual Public Performance Measurement and Reporting Conference, at a session on human capital at the Business Council of Fairfield County’s Leadership Fairfield County, and at the Connecticut Mirror’s “Small State, Big Debate: Race” event.
[The survey] provides neighborhood- and regional-level information not available from any other source on community vitality, health, family economic security, and individual happiness.
Supporters of the survey include dozens of the state’s leading hospitals, government agencies, universities, and charities statewide.
DataHaven designed the survey with support of nearly 100 government, academic, health care, and community partners in every region of the state, many of whom are major funders of the program.
Once the findings are collected and tabulated this fall, DataHaven expects the results to be used extensively by the many government, healthcare, academic and community partners throughout the state.
The [survey] input will be vital, according to Jim Williamson, president of the Community Foundation [of Greater New Britain], as the Foundation considers major, new community leadership and funding initiatives.