Roadmap Proposed for Equity-Centered Public Health Data Infrastructure
A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) commission has released recommendations to transform the U.S. public health data system by putting equity at the center. The foundation also announced $50 million in grantmaking toward that goal.
Led by Gail Christopher, D.N., executive director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity (NCHE), and supported by a research team at the RAND Corporation, the 16-member commission represents multiple sectors, including healthcare, community advocacy, government, business, public health, and others.
Commissioners examined both the systems and the data needed to ensure that public health information works for all, asking who the data we collect elevates, who is centered in our data, who is excluded, and why. RWJF said their overarching recommendations offer a blueprint for change and provide specific calls to action for a broad range of sectors.
The commission’s recommendations include:
• Changing how we tell stories about the health of people and communities. Data collected and interpreted equitably can illuminate where some people and places are cut off from key drivers of health, such as nutritious food, good schools, and stable and affordable homes as well as the historical policies—like housing discrimination—that limit the opportunities available in many communities.
• Prioritizing governance of our data infrastructure to put equity at the center. This includes collecting data across population groups by race, ethnicity, and geography and investing resources at the federal, state, and local levels where they are needed most.
• Ensuring that public health measurement captures and addresses structural racism and other inequities. This involves engaging community members in interpreting public health data and metrics that are community informed.
“Our country must now embrace this unprecedented time of change to create transformational innovations in our core systems and opportunity structures,” said Christopher, in a statement. “Our public health system and the data upon which it is based are key to achieving health equity. When implemented, recommendations offered by these diverse commission members will help propel America forward on our course toward healing and justice.”
To accelerate progress toward that goal, RWJF will award $50 million in funding for a range of projects aimed at creating a more equitable national public health data infrastructure, including:
• A grant of $11.5 million to transform local data environments to eliminate systemic racial, structural, and bureaucratic barriers in public health data and increase cross-sector cooperation for more timely, accurate, and comprehensive information;
• A grant of $10 million for building community-academic partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs) in the Gulf Coast region of the United States to expand capacity in the creation, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data to transform local public health data systems to address health inequity; and
• A grant of $10 million to advance local, state, and federal policies to promote more meaningful, nuanced data disaggregation beyond broad racial/ethnic categories to support more comprehensive strategies to raise awareness about the need to address disparities.
Additional grants will be announced in the coming weeks. RWJF and commission members will spend the next year sharing the recommendations with federal, state, and local governments, public health, business, health systems, nonprofits, professional associations, and philanthropy.
