Building Integrated Data Infrastructure for Community-Level Research on the Developmental Life Span From Cradle to Career

• In Event: Eco-Cultural Frames: Examining Challenges of Race, Ethnicity, and Class for Youth Learning, Development, and Resilience

Abstract

Scholars across several disciplines in the social sciences have argued that unless there is a radical departure from recent trends, poverty and affluence are destined to be geographically concentrated at high levels in future decades (Galster, 2012). These new ecological arrangements represent a significant change from earlier periods, and potentially will produce new geopolitical conditions that influence the risk and protective factors of class by superimposing administrative segregation on economic segregation (Duncan & Murnane, 2011; Massey, 2009). Massey argued that it is vitally important to understand the geographic contours of local government units, affluence and poverty, and the delivery of public services. He also stated that the most important single resource in this new ecological structure is education. Other scholars have argued that health and well-being, wealth, and employment opportunities are the most critical factors in this age of concentrated poverty and affluence (Adams, Nam, Shanks, Hicks, & Robinson, 2010). All share Massey’s pessimistic candor related to this emerging political ecology. Specifically, they share the concern that this rising inequality and its geographic expression have not generated sufficiently serious reflection and debate.

Orfield (2002) challenged scholars at local universities to address the problem of civic engagement while taking seriously the geospatial nature of regional conditions. Specifically, he called on researchers to analyze matters related to education, health, and human development by using geographic information systems (GIS) and related analyses to inform politicians, media outlets, citizens’ groups, and government agencies about education, health, and human development in their local context. To meet this challenge locally while serving as a national model, Washington University in St. Louis, has joined with Vision for Children at Risk to propose the creation of a data resource that will facilitate the study of the complex and interrelated systems that contribute to opportunities for education, health, and well-being across the developmental spectrum through young adulthood.

The study of metropolitan St. Louis serves as an example for other similarly positioned urban communities across the nation classified as at-risk, segregated, and slow growth regions (Gordon, 2008). Decreased population, shifts and downturns in the local labor market, high rates of teen pregnancy and low birth weight, and poor rates of educational attainment in stressed school systems are barriers to long-term productivity and civic engagement. Multiple data sources document these statistics at an individual level, but there is no integrated data system to support the study of the many layers of risk and protective factors and their interactions. The goal of this paper is to describe the need to build a data infrastructure that is accessible to both academic and community partners to support the assessment of the social and built environment in matters related to young person’s opportunities for education, health, and well-being. Ecological considerations are paramount to this process. Examples from metro St. Louis will inform the argument and analysis.

Author

• William F. Tate, Washington University in St. Louis