Six States Join Health Disparity Learning Lab

The National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) has launched a multi-state learning lab with six states to develop and implement state-specific data-driven policymaking approaches to address health disparities.

With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, NASHP is working with Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Washington. The participating states will engage in exchange of best practices, opportunities, and challenges, and receive expert support in developing and implementing action plans to meet their own data goals.

The learning lab will also highlight the health disparity data approaches used by Indiana and Utah. Through roundtable discussions with Indiana and Utah’s cross-agency health data policy leaders, participating states will learn about their respective approaches to data collection, data completeness and accuracy, analytics, and IT process. Participating states will also learn how Indiana and Utah foster key partnerships and strategically manage data-informed health disparities policy around Indiana’s Equity Data Portal and Utah’s uniform data collection standards for race and ethnicity information.

NASHP will also share lessons and best practices from states featured in “Healthy People, Healthy States: Promising Practices to Address Health Disparities.”

Leaders at all levels of government and across states are seeking to improve data collection and quality, and to leverage data to identify and address health disparities. As states are advancing reforms in policy, administration, workforce, payment and delivery, and data and evaluation, these efforts will inform strategies to address health disparities and promote best practices. States play a central role in shaping these systems to meet the unique needs of their residents and can capitalize on renewed national interest and the evolving policy landscape to make progress.