Better Data for Better Health

Resources and tools to advance health equity.
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Gathering and sharing accurate data can help communities, policymakers, journalists, and others understand the barriers to health some face and take action to overcome them.

Data helps communities advocate for what they need to improve health—such as housing they can afford, good-paying jobs, clean water, and more.

RWJF supports multiple efforts to provide community leaders and residents with local health data, as well as data about the forces impacting health—from education to transportation to environmental pollution—at the state, county, city, and census tract levels. These data sources help communities identify health challenges, use their resources efficiently, and track progress toward ensuring that health is not just a privilege, but a right for everyone.

Visualizing Inequity: The Data Behind Structural Racism

RWJF funded projects to develop visual tools that show how data can highlight the impacts  of structural racism on health and communities, and where leaders can take action to address these injustices. 

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Editor's Pick

Gail Christopher and Alonzo Plough: Advancing Health Data Equity in a Shifting Political Landscape

Two RWJF thought leaders discuss how to meet today’s health data equity challenges and stay hopeful in times of change.

Read their insights

Featured Resource

Life Expectancy: Could where you live influence how long you live?

People living just a few blocks apart may have vastly different opportunities to live a long life. Explore how life expectancy in America compares with life expectancy in your area, and resources to help everyone have the opportunity to live a longer, healthier life.

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Featured Datasets

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City Health Dashboard

Developed with RWJF support, the City Health Dashboard allows users to see correlations between community-level factors that shape health in cities, such as housing affordability, unemployment, and access to parks.

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Explore health data for all U.S. congressional disgricts.

Congressional District Health Dashboard

Created by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, in partnership with RWJF, the Dashboard incorporates more than 40 measures of health along with conditions that affect health for all 435 congressional districts and the District of Columbia.

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PLACES

A collaboration of RWJF, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the CDC Foundation, PLACES enables users to easily browse data about health for every neighborhood and ZIP code in the United States, based on measures of health.

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The SDOH & Place Project logo

The SDOH & Place Project

The SDOH Place platform made by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign aims to improve health equity research and support community health by increasing data accessibility.

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Child Opportunity Index (COI)

With new data and revised indicators, the Child Opportunity Index (COI) 3.0 measures and maps the quality of resources and neighborhood conditions that matter for childrens' healthy development.

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County Health Rankings & Roadmaps

The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps show that where we live matters to how long and how well we live. The program measures the health of nearly every county on the multiple factors that impact health.

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Related Content

Health Affairs

Improved State-Level Disability Data Are Necessary For Advancing Health Equity

The expanded collection and availability of disability data at the state level will help inform state policymakers about health and societal outcomes for people with disabilities.

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Related Content

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Transforming Public Health Data Systems

RWJF supports a range of projects aimed at modernizing and creating a more equitable public health data infrastructure informed by recommendations from the National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems.

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Learning and Evaluation

Evaluation is a cornerstone of our approach to philanthropy. We believe deeply in the value of sharing key insights from our grantmaking—what worked, what didn't, and why.

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Evidence and Data

We work to expand our nation's evidence base on the many factors which shape health. We recognize that equitable data collection and analysis is necessary to dismantle barriers to health equity.

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Regulatory Comments

Information-Sharing Between IRS and Census

RWJF offers its strong support for the 2024 Proposed Rule, which authorizes the IRS to expand the disclosure of Federal Tax Returns and Return Information to the Census Bureau.
Health Disparities Policy and Law Family and Social Environment
Can we ensure digital health information benefits all?
Brief

Surge in Digital Health Information Impacting Wellbeing

Learning how countries are centering equity in health as digital health information surges can help us dismantle barriers to health equity in the U.S.
Health Disparities Global Learning
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Brief

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data

State Health & Value Strategies reviews state-based data collection methods for sexual orientation and gender identity data included in Medicaid applications.
Healthcare Coverage and Access Policy and Law Gender Equality
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