Where to Find Facts To Help Navigate Today’s Challenges
With more access to information than ever before, it is now even more difficult for people and even policymakers to separate facts from misinformation. The non-profit organization, USAFacts, serves as a national database of critical facts elected officials can use to empower their policy decisions during this election year, and also share important information with their constituents and other members of the public. USAFacts is a non-partisan platform that provides critical, easy-to-digest data on a myriad of issues affecting our day-to-day lives.
The credible information it provides encourages people to start productive conversations based on facts, which helps our communities understand the numbers behind important issues. To help voting decisions during this contentious election season, USAFacts launched a Voter Center where voters can learn about issues and candidates from California. Voters can use this tool to compare candidates’ statements against each other with government data on crucial topics.
To channel the personal stories of real people in the midst of some of the critical issues of today, USAFacts recently launched the ‘Change the Story’ campaign that airs on all the major networks and platforms to make sure Americans are aware that this resource exists.
One of the real Americans the campaign highlights is Dr. Beverly Tambe, a doctor in East LA that has been serving on the front lines of the world health crisis. Dr. Tambe is the daughter of immigrants from Cameroon, she is the first person in her family to be born in the US, and the first in the family to go to medical school. Dr. Tambe urges us to stay informed with credible data on COVID-19 that USAFacts offers sorted by region, how it affects the economy and our standards of living. COVID-19 has become a top-priority issue of 2020 that has devastated families and made it difficult for frontline workers like Dr. Tambe from the start, however, according to USAFacts, deaths from COVID-19 are down. On September 1st, 1,074 deaths were recorded. On April 14th, 3,153 deaths were reported. These facts demonstrate that we do have the ability to help flatten the curve and help frontline workers’ daily tasks be less daunting. Still, in LA County there are about 300,000 known cases. Frontline workers are helping keep us as safe and healthy as possible, but we must refer to credible data to inform our daily decisions and personal opinions.
USAFacts and Dr. Tambe ask us to pay attention to facts about COVID-19, but we must also pay attention to facts on issues surrounding immigration, voting, race relations, and the state of our economy. According to USAFacts, the difference between citizen registration and the voting rate is 6.7% in California. These facts can generate ideas for a policy that is fact-based, and the USAFacts website can help inform that innovation responsibly.
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