Rubicon is carefully monitoring COVID infection rates and weighing risk factors to determine when to return to work sites. It’s a complicated decision, to say the least, but Rubicon is taking this unprecedented moment in history as another opportunity to put our commitment to being an antiracist organization into action.

Along with guidelines and data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization, (WHO) and county health authorities, Rubicon has added to our return-to-site indicators a measure that adjusts for the heightened vulnerability of our participant community due to social determinants of health, including race, income level, and the related prevalence of working in essential services. 

This adjustment was a natural step for an organization that “takes an equity lens to everything we do,” said Adrienne Kimball, Rubicon’s Chief Talent Officer. Kimball was studying the county indicators for her work on the committee that is determining when to return to site when she noticed something alarming: “These indicators are not for the people we serve.” She was unsurprised by the oversight. “We know that Black, Brown, and poor people are not usually centered in general population indicators, stats, or recommendations.”

According to the CDC, “long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put some members of racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting COVID-19.” Nationwide African Americans are five times more likely, and Latinx Americans are four times more likely to contract the virus than are white Americans. In addition, low-income communities and communities of color are at a higher risk of severe illness if infected.

Kimball said she did not have to sell the rest of her committee members on the idea of the equity buffer. They quickly added .5% to the WHO-recommended return-to-site community infection thresholds. Kimi Barnes, Rubicon’s Special Projects Manager, said that in addition to the equity buffer, she is looking at micro-populations in her data analysis. For example, “it’s not what’s happening in Contra Costa County; it’s what’s happening in Richmond. We have a commitment to what’s happening in our communities.” 

Rubicon recently put a hold on tentative plan to bring some staff back to job sites the week of June 15 due to recent spikes in infection levels across Contra Costa and Alameda Counties, as well as the fact that both counties are now on the State’s Watch List of counties that are not meeting State threshold criteria for the specific indicators. No new date has been set. Rubicon will continue to prioritize participant and employee health in our decision making.