Using Data to Work Effectively Toward Health Equity

Many health equity advocates have pointed to the important role data plays in addressing that inequity, noting that it is challenging to fix a problem about which we have no information.

"Healthcare is all about data," she told. "But what we do with the data is we aggregate the data in basically everything."

That aggregation, she says, can disguise important differences in the way vulnerable people and groups access care.  

"What we need to do in all our healthcare systems is we need to disaggregate the data and find out who those vulnerable patients are – and we need to examine our processes, and make adjustments to them, and make sure they're working for all vulnerable populations," she said.

For instance, one Seattle-based health system noticed that patients were often showing up for colonoscopies not properly prepped.