Events

Coding, Coded & Counting: A Bias Continuum

Speaker: Fay Cobb Payton

Location: On-Line

Date: Thursday, December 2, 2021

This presentation will review the research trajectory starting from earlier publications to works in progress. The earlier research examined information sharing and the impacts on health organizations and patients given the increased needs to share clinical information.  The speaker has continued this research with the expansion into social media, human computer interaction, content design as well as health disparities via comorbid conditions (including breast cancer, mental health, HIV) and data modeling.  A central theme of the research is leveraging, creating and using data to assess society (community) needs and the intersection of disparities which exist as along an “implications” continuum.  While much of the data created and used is a direct result of embedded notions of “systems” informing a direct outcome the coding, coded and counting (Web of Cs) does not exist in a vacuum.  Rather, the coding and coded influence a counting of decisions used that impact lived experiences.  For Black and Brown communities, this web of Cs informed algorithmic bias while overlooking factors including context, place and space.