Testimony
Policy Brief
Information Inequality Can Be a Matter of Life or Death
In this paper, Mary W. Graham examines how unintended information inequities undermine critical health and safety alerts. Focusing on three key policies — wildfire alerts, drinking water reports, and auto safety recalls — she identifies common roots of these disparities and highlights efforts by policymakers to address them.
By:
Programs
Issues
Six years ago, when California’s deadliest wildfire killed 85 people in the town of Paradise, more than three-quarters of those who died were 65 or older or had disabilities. Many never received evacuation alerts. More recently, 93 percent of those who died in the tragic January 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires were 65 or older or had disabilities, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s preliminary report.
In practice, information may not get to all Americans when and where they can access, understand, and act on it to protect themselves and their families. Wildfire alerts, drinking water contamination warnings, and auto safety recalls are among the nation’s enduring commitments to inform all Americans about hidden risks. A closer look at how they have served the public provides clues about the causes of information inequities and their remedies.
Originally published May 2025.
Mary Graham is a Senior Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Innovation and Governance.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent the positions of the Ash Center or its affiliates.
More from this Program
Insights from Transparency and Accountability Action Plans in Indonesia and Tanzania
Occasional Paper
Can Transparency and Accountability Programs Improve Health? Experimental Evidence from Indonesia and Tanzania
Podcast
Terms of Engagement—How Does Our Civil Rights History Shape the Future of American Democracy?
Archon Fung and Stephen Richer invite Harvard Kennedy School Professor and civil rights advocate Cornell William Brooks to assess the evolution of America’s historical narrative and what implications history has on our contemporary political context.
Commentary
Allen Lab Fellow Spotlight: Why a People-Centered Approach to American Democracy Matters Now
Allen Lab Policy Fellow Christine Slaughter makes the case that democracy must be understood through people’s lived experiences and agency, not just institutions.
Feature
Supply Skeptics or Abundance Acolytes? Mayoral Views on the Housing Crisis
Economists and policy analysts broadly agree that more housing needs to be built in order to reduce costs in America’s most expensive cities. Using a novel survey of mayors of mid-sized and large cities to explore mayors’ views on the roots of America’s housing crisis and what solutions they believe will most effectively address their constituents’ housing challenges, the authors summarize mayors’ attitudes and perceptions on key issues related to expanding the housing supply, reporting how well these views correlate with mayors’ assessments of their own cities’ supply needs.