The Human Development Approach: Stimulating a Fact-Based Conversation About Improving the Human Condition in Sonoma County, California

Abstract

Measure of America (MOA) is a nonpartisan research and advocacy project of the nonprofit Social Science Research Council. Its mission is to provide easy-to-use yet methodologically sound tools for understanding well-being and opportunity in the United States. This chapter provides an overview of the human development concept and how MOA has applied it in its research, advocacy, and participatory approaches to community well-being, particularly at the local level. It then explores how the application of the human development concept in a specific county, Sonoma County, California, resulted in a report, A Portrait of Sonoma County: Sonoma County Human Development Report 2014 (Burd-Sharps and Lewis, A portrait of Sonoma county: Sonoma county human development report 2014. SSRC, New York. Retrieved from http://www.measureofamerica.org/sonoma, 2014), that in turn galvanized action. The report documented sobering disparities in community well-being across the towns and cities that comprise Sonoma County by presenting indicators of health, education, and material living standards, and analyzing them through the human development lens. This paper documents some of the impacts of the report on policy-making, funding, and programmatic decisions by public agencies and private organizations in the year since the report’s launch. Factors that have contributed to building ownership of the report’s findings among stakeholders in the county and have helped build momentum to put the report’s data and recommendations into use are discussed in light of findings from a case study using interviews with Sonoma County stakeholders.

Portions of this chapter are adapted from Burd-Sharps and Lewis (2014, A portrait of Sonoma county: Sonoma county human development report 2014. SSRC, New York. Retrieved from http://www.measureofamerica.org/sonoma) and Guyer (<CitationRef aid:cstyle=”CitationRef” CitationID=”CR8”>2015</CitationRef>, The measure of America approach to gauging well-being and opportunity in the United States: Concept, application, and impacts at the community level. Social Science Research Council Working Paper. SSRC, New York). The authors thank the following for kindly agreeing to be interviewed for this chapter: Alfredo Perez, Executive Director, First 5 Sonoma; Beth Dadko, Program Planning and Evaluation Analyst, Sonoma Department of Health Services; Bette Perez, Executive Director of the Healdsburg Education Foundation; and Lisa Wittke Schaffner, Executive Director of the John Jordan Foundation.