What happens when public data disappears?: Suzanna Thiese

Guest columnist Suzanna Thiese, PhD, RN, is a research fellow at The Center for Community Solutions.

Public data -- the kind that tracks everything from pollution levels to maternal deaths -- is quietly vanishing.

Sometimes a dashboard goes dark. Sometimes a dataset stops being updated. On paper, it looks technical. But in practice, it’s devastating.

When data disappears in Washington, local communities lose one of their most powerful tools for understanding and solving real problems.

Data may seem like dry infrastructure, but it’s the scaffolding of oversight. It’s how the public can trace money, pollution, disparities and outcomes.

These vanishings rarely make headlines, but each lost data point clouds our ability to see ourselves clearly -- and to hold anyone responsible for wh