Collaborative Community Dashboard

True to our mission to help organizations collaborate on critical challenges that no single agency can tackle on their own, LegacyWorks Santa Barbara facilitated a public-private partnership and launched a countywide COVID-19 Data Dashboard. Building upon the metrics the County had already been reporting, LegacyWorks and the County evolved the dashboard to include an array of interactive data charts, gauges and maps for viewers to explore top priority epidemic data (cases, testing, health care capacity, vaccinations) by place, time period and demography. Through quality interpretative information, the dashboard helps tell the local COVID-19 story in a mix of visual and narrative forms.

To develop and iterate the dashboard, LegacyWorks facilitated a broad range of community organizations and agencies, guided by a steering committee made up of public health experts and community leaders. The steering committee’s work was informed by a larger advisory group with broad expertise and perspectives.  

The dashboard was used by the County to keep the community up to date on the evolving pandemic and to share reasons for policy decisions and other mitigation actions taken based on the data. Reporting out timely, accurate data, the dashboard presented it in a way that was easy to navigate and understand, enabling residents to take collective action to address the pandemic.

“In order to confront the COVID-19 crisis, Santa Barbara County residents and leaders need timely access to trustworthy data to make data-driven decisions. This public-private partnership brought together key agencies and organizations to meet this critical need by building an open and transparent collaborative data portal that builds upon everyone’s good work to date.” 

– Supervisor Gregg Hart
Chair, Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors

The dashboard served an essential role during a critical time of need. The County has since made the dashboard its own and still reports out critical COVID-19 related data on their website at sbcdashboard. 

“Santa Barbara County has a remarkable and rich network of skilled experts in a range of fields, each of which have been dramatically and uniquely impacted by the coronavirus crisis. This partnership brings these experts, and perhaps as importantly, brings their data together in one location, to comprehensively empower and ready our community and our leaders for the challenges and decisions ahead. As an infectious disease physician, I cannot wait to have this dashboard as a “one stop shop” where I will find all the latest data and information that I need to tell the story of what has happened, but also to help me predict and prepare for what may lie ahead.”

– Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons.

LegacyWorks Santa Barbara was the partnership convener, facilitator and project manager since inception. Our team was responsible for the design and implementation of the dashboard and the leadership of the collaboration. 

We additionally created a Wastewater Surveillance Dashboard to report out on the results of wastewater surveillance undertaken by the City of Santa Barbara since early in the pandemic. Learn more at Wastewater Surveillance Dashboard.

Steering Committee:

• Steven Delira, Deputy Executive Director, Family Services Agency

• Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons, Infectious Disease Specialist, Cottage Health Systems

• Terri Nisich, Assistant County Executive Officer, County of Santa Barbara

• Monica Ray, Population Health Strategic Development Mgr., Cottage Health Systems

• Peter Rupert, Ph.D., Economic Forecast Project Director, UC Santa Barbara

• Joy Kane, Senior Epidemiologist, County Public Health Department

• Ed Tran, Assistant Director, County Public Health Department

  Carl Palmer, Founder and CEO, LegacyWorks Group

Advisors:

• Rubayi Estes, Vice President of Programs, Santa Barbara Foundation

• Dr. Kevin Ferguson, Pathologist, Western Diagnostics Laboratory 

• Holly Goldberg, Ph.D.

• Joseph Incandela, Ph.D., Vice Chancellor of Research, UC Santa Barbara

• Dr. Kurt Ransahoff, CEO, Sansum Clinic

• Mike Ridland, Project Manager, ESRI’s Living Atlas of the World

• Dr. Trees Ritter, Infectious Disease Specialist, Marian Regional Medical Center

Contributing Partners:

• Cottage Health Systems

• Family Service Agency

• County of Santa Barbara Public Health Department

• County of Santa Barbara Department of Social Services

• County of Santa Barbara Department of Behavioral Wellness

• County of Santa Barbara Housing and Community Development Division

• Food Bank of Santa Barbara County

• Santa Barbara Foundation

• Santa Barbara County Education Office

• UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project 

• CalPoly San Luis Obispo, Department of Social Sciences