Over the years PSA has evolved perspectives that have revealed some of the core policy questions for promoting public online services. One of the core conundrums can be stated: are public services best done from the grassroots “up”, or from the hierarchy of national programs and experts “down”? Should they be done from the “Fund Me” multitude of small contributions, or by large tech and media companies, and hedge fund startup capital?
Surprisingly that “issue”, and others PSA is familiar with, arise as experts at New America Foundation discuss Policy issues with Covid Vaccine rollouts. (see video below of a full hour discussion)
More than a decade ago, PSA noted a need for a local leadership cadre to promote in-person and online learning and healthcare and workforce development. These exist and are called Promotoras.
A promotora is a lay Hispanic/Latino community member who receives specialized training to provide basic health education in the community without being a professional health care worker.
Often these are cadre in smaller communities, who are looked up to and respected as a source of “good ideas to adopt/ actions to take” that will help. They are trusted, which can make all the difference.
The lack of Covid vaccine uptake in some communities does seem to suggest the need for some local component similar to promotoras. That’s identified in the discussion below as a missing piece: the local trusted information source, and/or facilitator of local involvement in government programs, and local DIY initiatives.
In AfroAmerican communities, the promotoras role is often something that local churches/ ministers provide. The ability to form and support local institutions that can provide a foundation for group acceptance and involvement is a prerequisite for PSA-type programs, but equally so for Covid vaccine programs. The implication here is that the online world requires local leadership “on the ground” to effect change.
One of the statistical correlations for vaccine uptake is whether there is someone in a person’s social circle that has had a vaccine. Such virtuous circle group cohesion also plays an important role for other needs such as drug addiction and willingness to join educational programs, to name just two of many such.
But what about the top-down national experts and corporate and governmental capability? Local empowerment is NOT going to produce the highest of high tech vaccines, or other extremely sophisticated healthcare, or the highest production value multimedia learning games and tools. Additionally, there’s a moral imperative to get the best that’s out there fully distributed around the country, reaching down to the most isolated and poor in resources towns and communities. That’s top-down.
Probably the biggest core contradiction in “making things better”, is that policy that is good for the individual isn’t always good for the group, and policy good for the group isn’t always good for the individual. We’d like that not to be the case, but it is, and all policy has to deal with that reality somehow.