Health officials have relied on data visualizations throughout COVID-19 to convey urgent information regarding the virus's spread and preventative measures. In order to shape these communications, relatively few efforts have utilized participatory engagement with communities that have experienced a disproportionate burden of COVID-19 illness. W.E.B. Du Bois, a sociologist, thought that data visualization could help people change how they think about themselves. An adult English program in the Northern California, Bay Area, employs a community-engaged approach to data literacy skill development with bilingual Latina students. Data visualization activities, language instruction, and health prevention topics are all incorporated into the curriculum. In the early work on COVID-19 in 2020–21, the focus was on improving health knowledge and message interpretation. Later, however, the focus shifted to a critical data literacy perspective, with a focus on dispelling myths, improving risk messaging in learners' own social networks, and assisting learners in realizing the power of their own experiences in the process of data story-telling.
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