Resources

The Designing for Equity Starter Guide was created to provide insights and tools for those who are working to make the work of equity actionable. The Starter Guide helps readers identify systemic causes and effects of inequity so we can begin to probe the systems that uphold inequity, not the just symptoms. The Starter Guide offers practical techniques to help us (re)design with an equity lens.

MITRE conducted research to understand, analyze, and document the quantitative accounting of social equity using metrics, indicators and weights of inequity both within and external to economic analyses commonly used to assess cost effectiveness of climate resiliency investments proposed for government funding. The purpose of this work is to identify the methods and data that contribute useful information to the formulation of plans, prioritization of funding, and tracking impact after implementation, while recognizing limitations and potential improvements. Our intention is to gather feedback and vet our recommendations with subject matter experts, practitioners, and government and community representatives to reach a consensus on a path towards greater understanding of how we might equitably and intentionally direct funding towards the communities who need it most.

This document is a reference for researchers and professionals doing work in social justice who seek novel or additional indicators that go beyond standard measurements. This guide consolidates derived indicator resources to make the work of searching, understanding, and accessing these derived indicators easier and available to the public. It contains enough information to allow users to discriminate which sources/indicators are most appropriate for their use-case. Additionally, the data used for each indicator is listed and alternatives are suggested for those that used proprietary data.

Historically - models, analyses, and data sets created without consideration of equity have perpetuated unequal societal structures and policy decisions. The MITRE Social Justice Platform’s (SJP) Guide for Integrating Equity into Data Analysis provides recommendations, resources, and key questions to ask when considering equity at each project stage. Read about a few key considerations for each step, then visit the full Guide for Integrating Equity into Data Analysis for more information, to access helpful external links and resources, and to learn from real world examples.

As part of a research project funded by the MITRE Independent Research and Development Program, MITRE sought to better understand the impacts of place-based racial discrimination on mental health outcomes in U.S. cities by focusing on a specific federal housing policy implemented in the late 1930’s. The explainer below highlights key takeaways from an exploratory analysis of the association between historic redlining policies and poor mental health prevalence across cities that were part of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) City Survey program, and identifies considerations for future research.

The goal of the workbook is to help techie teams define and redefine success for a project by linking success criteria to equitable outcomes. I pulled from established design techniques, and I learned from (and am deeply grateful to) some remarkable authors to inform this workbook. By the end of the workbook, I hope you walk away with three outcomes. A) A sense of which group(s) of people are likely to benefit most from your efforts, or who might be at particular risk from inequitable results of your efforts, as well as ideas about who could tell you more about such potential benefits and risks. B) Intentionally establishing an equitable direction for your efforts, as well as actionable next steps for your team to take. C) A reliable process for incorporating equity into your efforts and emphasizing its role in your efforts.

Although OMB requires an analysis of distributional effects in conjunction with Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA), this is rarely performed in practice. MITRE found a lack of federal guidance and approved methodologies available. This report is a step-by-step methodology for identifying distributive effects that is scaled from simple to more comprehensive and complex, depending on the government action. Although not comprehensive, conducting a distributive effects analysis in conjunction with BCA moves the needle towards the consideration of social equity instead of omitting it completely.

Making Benefit-cost analysis (BCA) the ultimate criterion for government decision-making raises concerns over the limitations and inherit biases within BCA. By aggregating the benefits and costs of a government action, BCA can obscure who “wins” and who “loses”. Recent Executive Orders (EO) (EO 14008, EO 13990, EO 13985, and the memorandum dated January 20, 2021) stress the importance of addressing social equity and environmental and economic justice for underserved communities. Understanding how the costs and benefits are distributed is imperative to interpreting the impacts of a government action upon vulnerable and underserved populations. This report focuses on current practices used in evaluating distributional effects and addressing social equity.