Transforming data collection to advance health equity

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the inequality in American health care systems, which consistently neglect the needs of underserved communities, leaving them without access to quality care. A commentary published in Population Health Management highlights the need for a transformational change in our health care systems to advance health equity and address structural racism and health disparities affecting well-being.

Co-authors Dr.. Jonathan B. Perlin, President and CEO of The Joint Commission, and Alonzo Plough, Vice President of Research, Evaluation, and Learning and Chief Science Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), state, "The key to driving greater health justice is an equity-focused modernized, interconnected data infrastructure that helps us detect, measure, and identify the tools to eliminate our nation's persistent and growing health inequities."

They add, "The good news is that the expertise and technologies needed to revamp our health data infrastructure are widely available and, in some cases, already being successfully used to promote health equity."

The authors highlight the recommendations from RWJF's National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems, which offer a detailed roadmap for comprehensive data systems reform, including centering health equity and well-being in narrative change; prioritizing equitable data governance and community engagement; and ensuring public health measurement addresses structural racism.

"When the Joint Commission speaks, everyone listens! By elevating the need to tackle long standing disparities in care to an official Joint Commission outcome measure, this will help to improve health care and make it far more equitable," says David Nash, MD, MBA, Editor-in-Chief of Population Health Management, and Founding Dean Emeritus and Dr. Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon Professor, Jefferson College of Population Health, Philadelphia, PA.