numbers and stories are both data
Numbers and stories are both data.
I used to say this to my staff all the time, back in a previous life, working on public health systems and maternal health outcomes. We were helping the CDC define a new little checkbox on a form — a seemingly minor new adjustment to the national data that they were building. The checkbox question was:
Did discrimination contribute to this death? yes / no / maybe / unsure
A minor checkbox with massive implications.
That checkbox sparked all kinds of research, analysis, and shaping, of course, but for now I want to focus on the question that brought to light my belief in the necessary duality of numbers and stories:
What happens when discrimination exists in the absence of good care, rather than the presence of bad care?
Data isn’t neutral.
It’s inherently shaped by the questions asked and the people who ask them. But it is neutral in the sense that it doesn’t hold any inherent moral weight. In other words, we can take a beat — observe, first.
When I work with teams, I collect data about the social and organizational psychology — the interpersonal threats, and collective stories — as well as the “hard facts” — hiring and retention and promotions, the exit interview and DEI surveys over the years.
A board meeting that explodes in the last five minutes? Data. Three women of color staff leaving your org with less than a year tenure each? Data. A wordless sense of impending doom that wakes the ED up every morning at 4am? Data.
But even in our most intimate spaces and relationships, our bodies collect data too, if we’re willing to pay attention.
The way your belly laugh deepens when you’re tucked into your best friend's couch? Data. The flood of cool hope-drenched anxiety when their name pops up on your phone screen? Data. The soft exhale and relieved feet cricketing when you slip into clean sheets alone after a long week of peopling? Data.
Now, what we do with those data — how we interpret them, how we choose to move — that matters, and that’s a practice of discernment and decision-making that comes later.
I’ve always been soothed by the cold hard facts of numbers — the simple fortitude of an equation, the logic of an algebraic formula. When I was in middle school, the landline would ring as soon as we’d finish eating dinner. Every night, it was someone calling to ask me for help on math homework. I’d walk them through the problems — “if this is true, then that becomes true — can you see?” — always pleased by the clarity, the certainty of y = mx+b, the “ohhhh” of recognition when an equation settled into itself. I was right, the numbers were unchangeable, it is what it is.
I loved being right.
In the decades after, I studied narrative medicine, delighted in flash fiction, took a class on qualitative analysis.
What I mean is, I became less like a scientist and more like a writer.
I fell in love with stories in a way that perplexed me — me? the little obnoxious premed math tutor, insisting on what’s knowable — a writer?
And — even more inconceivable — what I love about story is the thing that makes it most unknowable. I love that words mean something different every time we use them. I love that human memory is endlessly fallible, exquisitely malleable.
I love that our stories are changed by the telling.
We can draw some interesting parallels here from systemic violence — did discrimination happen here, yes no maybe — to intimate violence.
What happens when abuse exists not in the presence of bad care, but in the absence of good care?
What happens when it slips between the lines of what goes unsaid in “well you know how she is” or “you know what he meant”?
What happens when it comes to light decades later in the form of a trail of broken relationships shaped by emotional neglect?
“Numbers and stories are both data” allows us to ask better questions about care, violence, conflict, and repair. It means we look at the facts, yes — but equally important, we excavate and address the narratives, too. Narratives, after all, are shaped by experiences.
When I work with clients now, I give them instructions I borrowed from Jessica Dore: “Hold your words accountable.” Are they descriptive and representative of your own lived experience? Get as granular and near to your reality as you can.
I want us to practice thinking like a mixed-methods researcher.
What are the numbers we’re paying attention to? Whose are the stories you have overlooked? How are your stories influencing what you see? Which numbers have you been collecting by default, instead of with intention?
Numbers and stories are both data because they expect us to ask better questions, of ourselves and each other.
Numbers and stories are both data because wisdom only exists at the intersection of the logical and the emotional.
Numbers and stories are both data because they tell us something about the presence and absence of care.
And what else is there, but the presence and absence of care?