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In Louisiana, governing elites have long found it more profitable to deny the connections between health outcomes and the structural inequities of an anti-Black petrostate. Their denial is made possible by the existence of data divergence–that is, inconsistencies between data sets or between a data set and the realities it purports to represent (Encyclopedia of Social Measurement 2005). These inconsistencies range from missing or “undone” (i.e. incomplete or ignored) data (Frickel et al. 2007) to the production of different measures (and the selection of different priorities) by institutional silos. Recognition of the need for public health capacities that address the systems and structures impacting health–especially children’s health–has motivated health equity advocates in Louisiana to fill the data gaps through collaborative datawork, that is, the work of making data meaningful across social and scientific communities. In 2022, a coalition of community organizations, academic researchers, and public health workers led by the Louisiana Center for Health Equity (LCHE), a community-based organization created by a registered nurse, worked together to examine the links between adolescent mental health and disciplinary practices in schools. Ensuring their agendas were informed by community priorities led them to incorporate the contributions of adolescents advocating for better access to physical and mental healthcare resources and the abolishment of discriminatory and punitive disciplinary actions in schools. Their collaborative datawork revealed how data gaps around adolescent mental health are a structuring component of schools’ discriminatory and punitive climates–much as gaps in environmental health data benefit polluting industries. They found that existing figures around adolescent mental health are inaccurate, as many youth are unable to receive an official diagnosis owing to lack of healthcare access. LCHE advocates at a house committee meeting in January 2023 reported that students who exhibit behavioral issues rooted in trauma or mental health more often receive punitive disciplinary actions rather than rehabilitative and restorative services. This work generated the support needed to pass legislation to expand public health infrastructure and access to mental health resources. In June 2023, House Bill 353 authorized the allotment of "mental health days" as an excused absence for students; introduced procedures for schools to connect students to medical treatment and services; and required the Louisiana Department of Education to develop and administer a pilot program for implementing mental health screening, among other changes. By mobilizing advocates and scholars from across the social and institutional silos, LCHE’s collaborative datawork tentatively expanded children’s public health infrastructures. 

Fisher, Margaux. 2023. "Collaborative Datawork and Reframing Adolescent Mental Health in the Deep South." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

In response to multiple concerns about water quality expressed by residents, EJCAN launched a water quality testing initiative with university-based collaborators from UNC Chapel Hill and Appalachian State University. Threats to water include but are not limited to industrialized agriculture. Industrialized hog feces contain pathogens, heavy metals, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria that growers store in large, open pit lagoons (Grant 1999; Wing et al. 2008; Blanchette 2019; Christenson et al. 2022). When operators spray the waste onto nearby fields, they also release air and waterborne contaminants. Scholars have linked airborne emissions from industrial hog operations to respiratory dysfunction, mood disorders, compromised immune function, anemia, kidney disease, tuberculosis, and low birth weight (Wing et al. 2000; Kravchenko et al. 2018; Guidry et al. 2018). Moreover, the odor is noxious, causing nausea, embarrassment, disorientation, and social loss in cultural continuity as people cease culturally meaningful practices like gardening, going for walks, or gathering outside to share food (Herring 2014; Blanchette 2019). The impacts to water include contamination, harmful algal blooms, fish kills, and eutrophication in rivers and estuaries, especially when hurricanes flood the inner coastal plains with industrialized animal waste (Wing et al. 2000; Wing et al. 2008; NCCN 2021; Emanuel 2018; Christenson et al. 2022). Access to water infrastructure in Sampson County is highly uneven, and residents have been advocating for improved access for more than a decade. 

Nearly half of Newark's school's are contaminated with dangerous levels of lead. Or so they were two years ago when this article was published. This relates to infrastructure because we are poisoning poor, primarily black and hispanic communities, whom already have low resilience. Because they live in empowerished neighborhouds, their children go to lower income schools, and when they drink the water provided there, they put themselves at risk of cancer, infertillity, and other results of lead poisoning. If Newark's infrastructure was more balanced between white and black communities, there would not be impoverished areas that have poisonous drinking water at schools, as the water standard in the schools would have been raised to that of higher income communities.