'Data for Good': TN Senator highlights Belmont for using data to combat human trafficking

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) introduced the National Human Trafficking Database Act.

That act would establish a national human trafficking database through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and incentivize state law enforcement agencies to report data.

The announcement came as Blackburn pointed to the success of Tennessee’s data collection program. The program was implemented by Belmont University’s Data Collaborative and the anti-human trafficking non-profit Engage Together.

“At the Belmont Data Collaborative, we like to work on projects that do good in the community. We call that ‘data for good’,” explained Assistant Director of the Belmont Data Collaborative Dr. Marquinta Harvey. “We teamed up with a nonprofit called Engage Together to work on Human Trafficking, to understand the data behind it so that we can more so understand the prevalence of human trafficking.”

That mindset is centered around the Data Collaborative, which partners with organizations and the community to address complex problems by providing a comprehensive and open data warehouse and the processes to provide actionable solutions.

Human trafficking is one of those complex problems they have been working to change. By partnering with Engage Together, they were able to identify where those most vulnerable to human trafficking are in Tennessee.

“Their approach is to canvas the state, canvas the community, and understand what are the strengths in working to combat human trafficking and what are the gaps,” Data Analytics Manager at the Belmont Data Collaborative Tommy Strickler said. “Through the data collaborative, our part in this project was to come alongside and help engage together and the organizations that they work with understand the vulnerability’s within the community that traffickers most often prey on.”

Currently, there are no tools for tracking human trafficking incidents, especially because so many go unreported. However, through research, the Data Collaborative is able to create a clearer picture of the problem.

Engage Together map of TN counties, highlighted by level of human trafficking — For the overall vulnerability index (mapped above), as well as each of the vulnerability categories described in the methodology section, the higher the index score, the higher the vulnerability within that community. (Source: Engage Together)

The research revealed the top five counties in Tennessee with the highest risk for human trafficking:

1. Shelby County
2. Madison County
3. Davidson County
4. Hamilton County
5. Bradley County

“To our knowledge and looking at the research, there hasn’t been this community-level type study done to understand vulnerability amongst these populations,” Harvey said. “When we are looking at something like human trafficking, we need a deeper understanding. the data really is not there, so in order to understand it, we have to capture what’s going on.”

To get a complete look at the project between Engage Together and the Belmont Data Collaborative, you can see their findings here: click here. If you are interested in joining forces with Belmont, you can contact data@belmont.edu.

“When we look at the data, what we found were communities have patterns of vulnerability, so it’s not one size fits all,” Harvey said. “We can see that if we see a pattern that means there is an issue above the individual, there is a community problem.”