Measuring What Matters: Data Absenteeism, Science Communication, and the Perpetuation of Inequities

• Author: Mesfin A. Bekalu,Edmund W. J. Lee,Rachel Faulkenberry McCloud,K. Viswanath
• DOI: 10.1177/00027162221093268
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Inequalities

208 ANNALS, AAPSS, 700, March 2022

DOI: 10.1177/00027162221093268

Measuring What

Matters: Data

Absenteeism,

Science

Communication,

and the

Perpetuation of

Inequities

By

K. VISWANATH,

RACHEL FAULKENBERRY

McCLOUD,

EDMUND W. J. LEE,

and

MESFIN A. BEKALU

1093268ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYMEASURING WHAT MATTERS

research-article2022

The ways in which we collect health and social data,

particularly data on vulnerable and underprivileged

populations, is enormously influential over the qual-

ity and content of science and health communica-

tion. Data absenteeism—the absence or limits of

data on groups experiencing social vulnerability—is

endemic; and as a result, inferences drawn from

studies with absentee data are questionable. Reasons

for data absenteeism include tendencies toward

conventional recruitment of the subjects in research,

the ways in which communities are engaged or not

engaged in the research process, and a lack of

understanding and appreciation of the lived reality

of the socially vulnerable. The “hardly reached” are

often labelled “hard to reach,” keeping this critical

population out of view. One approach to mitigate

data absenteeism is to engage key stakeholders of

the community and its residents in the entire

research process from design to dissemination,

which influences how research questions are asked

and answered and how research gets used. We argue

for a more inclusive science of science communica-

tion to promote diversity and equity.

Keywords: data absentism; communication inequlity;

measurement; science communication

The seemingly unending individual and social

costs of the COVID-19 pandemic are not

just the consequence of derelict preparedness

for public health emergencies but arguably a

failure in science communication. Even more

critical has been our utter inability to capitalize

on bodies of research in social epidemiology,

medicine, health communication, and other

social sciences that could have predicted differ-

ential outcomes in morbidity and mortality

K. Viswanath is Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health

Communication at Harvard T. H. Chan School of

Public Health and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

His primary research is in documenting the relation-

ship among communication inequalities, poverty and

health disparities, and knowledge translation to address

health disparities.

Correspondence: Vish_Viswanath@dfci.harvard.edu