8/12 Opportunity Research - a picture’s worth a thousand words + medical debt 2009-2020

By Andrew

• From The University of Chicago - a working paper found that despite growing awareness in recent decades, children’s books generally skew toward lighter skin and male representation. Specifically, “across all books, children are depicted with lighter skin than adults. Over time, females are increasingly present but are more represented in images than in text, suggesting greater symbolic inclusion in pictures than substantive inclusion in stories. Relative to their growing share of the US population, Black and Latinx people are underrepresented in the mainstream collection; males, particularly White males, are persistently overrepresented.”

I generally agree with Greg Lukianoff, the CRT “debate” isn’t actually about CRT, but about foundational mistrust in our ability to unpack the hardest topics in our nation’s history, particularly race and racism, in the classroom. As we try to answer questions related to teaching and learning about race and racism, you would think data-informed evidence about the status critical inputs, like instructional materials, would help.

• From JAMA - this study provides an estimate of the amount of medical debt in collections in the US based on consumer credit reports from January 2009 to June 2020, reflecting care delivered prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and suggests that the amount of medical debt was highest among individuals living in the South and in lower-income communities. Specifically, “In June 2020, an estimated 17.8% of individuals had medical debt (13.0% accrued debt during the prior year), and the mean amount was $429 ($311 accrued during the prior year). The mean stock of medical debt was highest in the South and lowest in the Northeast ($616 vs $167; difference, $448 [95% CI, $435-$462]) and higher in poor than in rich zip code income deciles ($677 vs $126; difference, $551 [95% CI, $520-$581]).”

Will the on-going debt conversation be broadened beyond student loans (of note: Senator Bernie Sanders proposed eliminating all of the past-due medical debt held by Americans during the 2020 Democratic Primary)? Timing seems too on the nose.