The City Equity Indicators contained 72 indicators total, 24 in each of the three themes of the Ferguson Commission’s report: Justice for All, Youth at the Center, and Opportunity to Thrive. Those 24 indicators were further divided into three topics. As an expansion of the City Equity Indicators, the Regional Equity Indicators Dashboard attempted to use the same indicators. In the Youth at the Center and Opportunity to Thrive themes, this was largely possible. Occasionally, individual indicators were modified or replaced to adapt to the availability and/or structure of the data in the counties studied.

The data for most of the Justice for All indicators came from internal data from the City of St. Louis’ agencies, departments, and offices. These same data were either not aggregated at the county level or not publicly available to the research team working to collect the data for St. Charles, St. Louis, and St. Clair (IL) counties. Of the 24 indicators, we were able to consistently locate analogous data in these counties for less than 5 of them. This was so insubstantial that we made the decision to not report anything in the Justice for All theme. Instead, we are using this opportunity to call for regional partnership and action to improve the quality, quantity, and accessibility of data pertaining to our regional justice system. As a starting point, the data for the Justice for All indicators needs to be available from all courts and police departments and to be available disaggregated by race.

A data dashboard is an information tool that helps a community determine, collect, analyze, and display key indicators and metrics as they relate to community conditions. It is an efficient way to track multiple data sources because it provides a central location for the community to monitor and analyze current conditions and conditions as they change over time. The data dashboard is a means to educate about community conditions by displaying accurate information and not rely on suppositions.

An indicator is a number that measures “how much” or “how many” or “to what extent” or “what size.” The number associated with an indicator allows for comparison, such as “what is the difference in median income comparing community A and community B,” or “what is the difference in median income in community A in 2000 compared to 2010.”

The use of indicators in a data dashboard allows for establishing community goals and measuring progress on those goals. For example, one indicator of community condition is the percentage of elementary students reading at grade level. To the degree that not all elementary students are reading at grade level, the community establishes a goal for all elementary students to be reading at grade level. The indicator is a means to measure progress toward that goal over time.

United Way of Greater St. Louis initiated the development of a regional equity dashboard in December 2016, in response to the Ferguson Commission’s identified need to measure regional progress in advancing racial equity. Over the course of several meetings, a group of invited thought leaders made formative decisions that the dashboard should:

• include the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA)
• compare data to demonstrate gaps
• use areas and indicators that align with existing regional efforts that are maintaining data
• be interactive with links to regional promising practices in each area

As a group of thought leaders was convening to shape the Regional Equity Indicators Dashboard, the City of St. Louis was awarded a grant by the CUNY Institute for State and Local Government (ISLG) to be one of five cities in a cohort to replicate the Equality Indicators the Institute had developed for New York City. When the City of St. Louis was approved for the Equality Indicators grant, the regional leaders thought group paused its dashboard development to coordinate with the City, thereby ensuring regional alignment. This resulted in a collective decision to use the Ferguson Commission’s report as the basis for both the City Equality Indicators project and the Regional Equity Indicator Dashboard. In the report, there are 47 Signature Priorities organized in four areas: Justice for All, Opportunity to Thrive, Racial Equity, and Youth at the Center. These priority areas became the organizing framework for selecting indicators of inequality. The grant the City of St. Louis received from the Institute provided dedicated staff to work with the agencies and departments of the City to select 72 indicators, to collect and process the data, and to apply the Institute’s Equality Indicators methodology and framework.

Four core jurisdictions of the City of St. Louis, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, and St. Clair County (IL) were selected for the initial phase of collecting and analyzing equity indicator data for the St. Louis region. These four jurisdictions have 70% of the total population in the 16-county service area of United Way of Greater St. Louis and 94% of the black population.

The data come from various publicly available federal and state data sources. These include the American Community Survey, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, the Missouri Attorney General’s office, the Illinois State Board of Education, and Illinois Department of Public Health.

The data for each indicator included in this dashboard measure disparities between black and white residents. In the four counties included in the dashboard, there are approximately 1,965,000 residents – 68.8% of those residents are white, and 24.6% are black. Over 93% of the population in the geographic area, which is the focus of this dashboard, is accounted for by examining data for black and white residents. Other ethnic and racial groups make up 3% or less of the population in the study area. This dashboard is presented with an understanding that true equity for the region means equity for all residents, not just black and white residents.

The overall Equity Score, as well as the scores for each theme, topic, and indicator, quantifies the current state of racial equity in the four jurisdictions included in the dashboard – in Missouri, the City of St. Louis, and St. Charles and St. Louis counties and St. Clair County (IL). This enables the St. Louis region to measure the disparate conditions of black and white residents and to measure progress over time.

For example, for the indicator Child Poverty, in St. Louis County, 18% of black children live in a household with an income below the poverty level and 3.5% of white children live in a household with an income below the poverty level. Dividing 18% by 3.5% produces an inequality ratio of 5.142, that is black children in St. Louis County are more than five times more likely to live in poverty than white children. This process of calculation involved collecting the data for each of the four jurisdictions for each of the indicators and then computing the disparity ratio. The Institute developed a scoring system so that these ratios could be compared across a number of indicators, and for this application in the dashboard across jurisdictions. Learn more about the scoring system here. Future iterations of the Regional Equity Indicators Dashboard will show changes in Equity Scores and discuss recent efforts to increase racial equity.

Racial Equity Here is an ad hoc movement of community organizations, local governments, foundations, schools and businesses across the country working together to advance racial equity.

The Government Alliance for Race and Equity (GARE) produced the Racial Equity Toolkit to provide guidance to local government in planning and implementing decision-making processes to eliminate racial inequities and advance equity.

Racial Equity Tools is a web-based resource designed to support individuals and groups working to achieve racial equity. The website provides tools, research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working toward justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities, and the culture at large.

Portland, Oregon’s Partnership for Racial Equity developed the Racial Equity Strategy Guide as a manual for local governments that want to incorporate racial equity into their operations and services.

An example of a resource developed by a state government is Michigan’s Racial Equity Toolkit: A Road Map for Government, Organizations and Communities.

Another example of a resource developed by a local government is Montgomery County Maryland’s Racial Equity in Government Decision-Making: Lessons from the Field.

Living Cities, a membership organization of foundations and financial institutions, just released their report Racial Equity Here Learning Report: Lessons from 5 Cities Operationalizing Racial Equity.

There are industry-specific resources such as Adding Racial Equity to the Menu developed by Race Forward, a merger of the Center for Racial Justice Innovation united with the Center for Social Inclusion, for restaurant employers.

The Foundation Center has a resource for philanthropic organizations – Grant Making with a Racial Equity Lens.

The Urban Sustainability Directors Network provides human resource department guidance with their publication Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Recruitment, Hiring and Retention.

There are abundant resources available to guide the St. Louis community in implementing action to address the racial inequity documented by the Regional Equity Indicators Dashboard. The critical next step is leadership to initiate the action.

While the Ferguson Commission report’s Signature Calls to Action provided an appropriate guide to the selection of Regional Equity Indicators, there are indicators that other regions have used. The following are examples of sources of data and equity indicators that sometimes overlap, but often vary, from the indicators in the Regional Equity Indicators Dashboard.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s Opportunity Atlas provides data at the census tract level, which can be accessed by individual address and aggregated to the city, county, and state levels. The data on a large number of indicators can be statistically analyzed or comparative data can be downloaded.

PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing racial and economic equity and the University of Southern California Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) developed the National Equity Atlas. This web-based resource provides access to equity data at the national, state, regional, and city levels. Its indicators are organized in the categories of Demographics, Equity, and Economic Benefits.

The Brandeis University Heller School for Social and Policy Management provides data focused on metropolitan areas. The data are organized into six topics – Population Demographics and Diversity, Housing Opportunities, Education, Health, Residential Integration and Neighborhood Characteristics, Economic Opportunities, Crime, and Physical Environment.

A number of cities and regions have taken the approach of developing an equity atlas.  Examples are:

• Atlanta
• Denver
• Kansas City
• Los Angeles
• Portland

You can contact Sherita M. Haigler at Sherita.Haigler@stl.unitedway.org with any questions.