Boston Indicators is releasing a first round of analysis through our new project, the COVID Community Data Lab. They are producing this work in partnership with the Center for Housing Data at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and with contributions from the UMass Donahue Institute. They're scanning the best available real-time data sources for analyzing how our communities have changed since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in early March (since public health experts are covering the dynamics of the virus spread, Indicators focuses here mostly on non-virus-related areas). We're hosting an online webinar to discuss early findings and get ideas for future directions for the project.

Through this project Boston Indicators is looking at non-traditional data sources like call volumes to the state’s 211 social service call center, weekly unemployment claims and road traffic through Mass Pike toll gantries. None of them are perfect, but taken together they show how the public health and the economic dynamics of the crisis have exacerbated underlying inequities, with those already among society’s most vulnerable hit hardest.

The webinar will include a presentation of the research and comments from Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan, Member of Boston’s COVID-19 Health Inequities Task Force, Boston Foundation Board Member, and Chief Impact Officer at DentaQuest.