The Commonwealth of Virginia has unveiled what it calls the nation’s first public statewide health equity dashboards, providing a snapshot of its COVID-19 response and recovery efforts and making key data more accessible to Virginia residents.
The two dashboards — Equity in Action and Equity at a Glance — were created by the Virginia Health Equity Leadership Taskforce (ELT) in partnership with several state agencies. The dashboards are being launched as a part of Virginia’s commitment to act on health equity in response to two key pieces of legislation: House Joint Resolution 537, which declares racism as a public health crisis in the Commonwealth, and Virginia Code Section 2.2-435.12, which requires Virginia’s chief diversity officer to conduct statewide equity assessments.
“Our equity dashboards serve as a national exemplar for increasing transparency and making data more accessible,” said Janice Underwood, Ph.D., Virginia’s chief diversity officer, in a statement. “The launch of these two dashboards reinforces Virginia’s leadership position, highlights the equity work being done across the Commonwealth, and serves as a call to action in closing gaps and improving the health and well-being of all Virginians.”
The Equity-in-Action dashboard is a snapshot of the progress Virginia has made across its COVID-19 response and recovery and other initiatives that advance the equitable distribution of resources and services. The Equity-at-a-Glance dashboard offers an assessment of social determinants of health and other factors contributing to health equity. Future versions of these dashboards will include an expanded set of topic areas, such as workforce diversity and criminal justice.
State Health Commissioner Norman Oliver, M.D., M.A., added that the dashboards enable the Virginia Department of Health and other leaders to get the information they need to confront inequity across social determinants of health. “Public health officials, community leaders, and policy makers can use these resources now as we work to recover from the COVID-19 public health crisis and beyond,” he said.
An overview of the dashboards and underlying data can be found at: governor.virginia.gov/diversity/equity-dashboards/overview.
