Using Data to Tell Your Story
This guide provides a framework to assemble the narrative, data, and visuals to support the story a community would like to tell.
The 6-Steps for Telling Your Story
The Colorado Equity Compass provides organizations and individuals with the data storytelling resources they need to improve health equity in their communities. These 6 steps show how to bring data storytelling to life.
01. DEFINE AN AREA OF FOCUS
02. FIND EXISTING DATA
03. DETERMINE DATA GAPS
04. EXPLORE THE MEANING OF THE DATA
05. TELL ENGAGING STORIES
06. DEVELOP YOUR DATA STORY
01. DEFINE AN AREA OF FOCUS
02. FIND EXISTING DATA
03. DETERMINE DATA GAPS
04. EXPLORE THE MEANING OF THE DATA
05. TELL ENGAGING STORIES
06. DEVELOP YOUR DATA STORY
What is the Story You Are Trying to Tell?
Identify the key issues or social determinants of health (SDOH) in your community that are impacting health outcomes. The focus may change over time, but it gives you a place to start with data collection (e.g., mental health, early education, housing, access to food).
Learn more about the Social Determinants of Health and how they affect Health Equity with our Resource Library.
Find out what challenges your community is facing by searching for your county or census tract(s) in the Equity Data Navigator.
Community Engagement
Ask community members who are most impacted by inequitable health outcomes or access to resources to determine what story should be shared, why it should be shared, and how it should be shared. You might explore doing this through a survey, focus groups, interviews, community listening sessions, etc. This helps to ensure your work and focus is guided by specific inequity issues and what’s most pressing in the community.
What Data is Available?
Identify existing information or data that is relevant to your focus area. Sources include reports, surveys, government agencies, Census, etc. Data can also include observations, photos, stories, etc. Try to include both qualitative and quantitative data to identify the challenge and why it is important. The Equity Data Navigator attempts to democratize data and make it available to all Coloradans.
You can get started finding data sources in our Resource Library.
Community Engagement
Engage community members in identifying existing data. They may know of locally available or sourced data collected by community agencies or groups.
Where Are There Gaps in the Data?
Use the Equity Data Navigator and CEC Data Needs Assessment to identify the gaps. Gather additional data via surveys, focus groups, and interviews that are missing or have not been collected by other entities. Apply an equity lens by identify data that can highlight individual and community assets and move from a deficit model to positive, strengths-based framing.
Use the Data Collection Planning Toolkit, Survey Toolkit, Focus Groups Toolkit and Interview Toolkit from our Resource Library to get started.
Community Engagement
Think creatively about how you might gather data about your area of focus. Leaders within your community may have ideas about how you and community members can best gather the data you need, what questions you might ask, where you might reach people to learn about their experiences, and more. Ensure that you’re allowing everyone to partake in your data collection by using interpretation services, providing childcare and food (if convening people), creating multiple ways for people to give input, etc.
What Does the Data Mean, and Does It Reflect What the Community is Seeing?
Organize data in ways that are appropriate to the focus area interests. This might involve sorting data by individual, by group, by event, by place, or by some combination of factors. Examine the data to reveal relationships, patterns, and trends in the information. This step of the process can help you uncover differences or connections among the various factors of interest. Consider how to effectively use data in a way that brings attention to inequity problems. For example, look for trends or differences that emerge if you examine rural vs. urban groups, Spanish speakers vs. Non-Spanish speakers, Black people vs. Non-Black people, etc. Be a data detective!
Get started with Building Coalitions to Promote Health Equity and Investing in Data Capacity for Community Change from our Resource Library.
Community Engagement
Engage people most impacted by the issue or social determinant of health. Find ways to make data sense-making more accessible (e.g., data sorting activities, visual graphing of frequencies or trends). Sometimes data does not align with what is actually happening in the community. Community members may interpret the findings differently, can identify the context for the findings, and are often able to explain any differences.
Now, How Do We Gather and Share Stories?
Tell stories in a way that promotes equity and uses narrative that empowers communities most marginalized. Use the CEC Engaging Stories Guide to go alongside the data. Determine the media and platforms that will be used and how stories will be submitted and shared.
To get started, use the Introduction to Public Health Digital Storytelling Webinars and Stories Beat Statistics: The Power of Data Storytelling resources from our Resource Library.
Community Engagement
Ask yourself where your population of focus consumes the most media (e.g. social media, community newspapers, podcasts, blogs, etc.) and create content that can be shared through those channels. Next, consider interviews with the public about the specific SDOH that are impacting their lives. Make a point of finding community members within a range of demographics and look for trends or anomalies in their responses by asking these questions: 1.) Can the information I have gathered be supported/questioned by specific members of the community? 2.) Do community responses align with my data overall? If so/not, why? 3.) Do different demographics tell a different story when asked the same question?
How To Bring it All Together?
Combine the data, story(ies), and visualizations in a clear, compelling, and equitable manner. Data storytelling helps you engage your audience by inspiring different parts of the brain and turning data insights into action. You can leverage your data story to identify actions for programmatic, policy, and systems-level change. Check out the Data Storytelling for Communities Guide for examples of data visualizations such as infographics, maps, videos, that integrate data and stories.
Additionally, check out The Data Visualization Design Process and Applying Equity Awareness in Data Visualization from our Resource Library.
Community Engagement
Stories have power. Communities that tell their own stories recognize the historical and structural powers that have existed and the community solutions that they desire. Provide tools and resources to community members that help amplify their voices and experiences.
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Stories from Colorado Communities
Sharing our stories is what connects and brings us together. Learn more about individuals and families that make up the diverse communities throughout our state.
Read More
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