If you close your eyes and picture Appalachia, what do you see? The images that often arose first in my mind were those from LIFE Magazine’s 1964 photo essay on the war on poverty. Photojournalist John Dominis gave the nation a face to the plight of Appalachian communities in Eastern Kentucky, and poverty and economic hardship have long been central to an outsider’s understanding of the region ever since. But through my work at the Foundation, I knew this narrative was only one part of the region’s rich and diverse story. I knew there was a different story to be told, and so I wanted to shine a light on these bright spots that demonstrate how health can flourish across Appalachia.
I began this journey by seeing what the data could tell me. As I was reviewing the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) website, I stumbled across county-level data on economic status. ARC’s index-based county economic classification system compares economic indicators like poverty and unemployment rates with national averages and then ranks each county. Those data allow the ARC to categorize counties along a spectrum: distressed or at-risk at the lower end, and competitive or “attainment” (economically flourishing) at the higher end. A self-described “data nerd,” curiosity led me to overlay their county index with the annual County Health Rankings just to see what I could find when I compared the two.
[For more of this story, written by David Krol, go to http://www.rwjf.org/en/culture..._meet_curiosity.html]
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