Professor Tracey Lauriault’s Carleton University funded rapid response research project entitled Tracing COVID-19 Data, is in the news. A group of graduate students have been examining the dire living conditions of disabled people and their invisibility in data. Disabled people living in collective dwelling are at very high risk of the spread of the virus in these dwellings and they are currently uncounted and unaccounted for in terms of the Ontario Vaccine roll out.
Research assistants Megan Linton (Sociology) the project’s critical disabilities studies expert is supported by Kit Chokly (Communications) our data intersectionality expert and designer, have been leading the charge. A backgrounder is available here, in essence we are trying to compile, with disability and open data advocates across the country, a foundational dataset so that these folks can be seen in policy and in action.
In addition to being an up-and-coming scholar, Megan is also a person with the lived experience of a disabled person, and has been in the news talking about these invisibilities. She was interviewed by CBC’s Alan Neal on All in a Day and authored the following article: Ontario’s hidden institutions Facilities like ‘domiciliary hostels’ are an outdated model of custodial care that violates disabled people’s rights.
The research team is digging for information to compile into a database with the Canadian Open Data Society, GO Open Data, and Open North and several people in the disabled people’s community and citizens at large who want to help.
We will have a public crowdsourcing activity on March 6 for International Open Data Day. Stay tuned!
Here is a link to one of our datasets: PRESS – Disabled People’s Database – Invisible Institutions – Megan Linton – Google Sheets
Thursday, February 25, 2021 in Communication News, News
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