Data for Health Equity

Building the evidence base for health equity includes evaluating data to guide the decisions that help communities thrive. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the gaps and inadequacies of our current data infrastructure. Often, health information on race and ethnicity is missing or unreliable. There is no standardized way to collect individual (e.g., “I am experiencing homelessness”) or community social risk data (e.g., “My community lacks affordable housing”), let alone share those data across sectors to coordinate, align, and evaluate efforts.

Improving community health requires accurate and relevant data to identify population health inequities, develop locally relevant interventions, and track progress toward health equity. The AAMC Center for Health Justice is committed to ensuring that the United States has the data it needs to achieve health equity.

Data for Health Equity: The Foundation for Creating Healthier Communities

This virtual briefing for Congress highlighted on July 21, 2021, how all sectors in the health ecosystem — including public health, medicine, housing, and transportation — have similar data needs for demographics, individual-level social needs, and community-level social determinants of health.

It also illustrated the Center for Health Justice’s other advocacy, service, and research efforts to advance data for health equity.