The first week of October was “Data Week DC”, where Data Community DC, companies and organizations in the D.C. area held a variety of fun, interesting and educational data-driven events. We teamed up with RainbowR and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation for “LGBTQ+ Data Exploration,” a deep dive into the state of LGBTQ data collection.
Charlie H. Whittington, Research Manager at the HRC Foundation, provided a rundown of the current state of LGBTQ data collection (spoiler: it’s not that great), and then walked us through ways we can use the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior System (YRBS) data to estimate disparities between the experiences of LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ youth, including in the realm of HIV risk. She demonstrated how she uses matching and regression to reduce bias and better isolate the effect of being LGBTQ on HIV risk factors, such as having condomless sex or the frequency of HIV testing. Charlie also answered questions about a range of LGBTQ+ data issues - from best practices in sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data collection to filtering out troll responses. Check it out for yourself by clicking on the video of her presentation below.
It was inspiring to hear about all the great work Charlie and the HRC Foundation are doing to research and educate the public about the LGBTQ+ community. Quality data and analysis are critical tools in our fight for inclusive policies, and learning from an expert about all that goes into it provided a reminder about how valuable and essential this work is. Please consider checking out the HRC Foundation’s many programs and research, and be on the lookout for future LGBTQ+ data events.
Ready to explore the YRBS data for yourself?! Get a jumpstart with pre-pulled sets on RainbowR's github!