Infectious Disease

Health Equity Tracker assesses the impact of COVID-19 on underserved populations

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Gilead Sciences and Google.org have endorsed the Health Equity Tracker.

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For minority patients and other historically underrepresented populations, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated long-standing inequalities in health care.

To address these inequalities, the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Satcher Health Leadership Institute launched its Health Equity Tracker, a data platform designed to assess the impact of COVID-19 and other diseases on these populations.

Backed by Gilead Sciences Inc., Google.org, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the CDC, the tracker is a data visualization program that can monitor multiple factors and conditions that may have affected COVID-19 results and exacerbated health differences .

Daniel E. Dawes

Daniel E. Dawes

“Our Health Equity Tracker is a publicly accessible, scalable data visualization solution platform that collects multiple data sets ranging from demographic data, COVID-19 and other health conditions to social and political determinants of health.” Daniel E. Dawes, Executive Director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute said in an interview with Healio. “Our tracker has an unprecedented ability to identify missing data gaps across the country, leading to a novel, comparative approach to highlight health inequalities.”

Currently, the tracker monitors COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospitalizations by race, ethnicity, gender, and age, and by state and county. It also assesses comorbidities related to COVID-19, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes, and takes into account social and cultural factors such as lack of insurance and poverty. Ultimately, thought of as a “living tool,” the tracker will expand to include mental and behavioral health and focus on other social and political determinants of health, such as health.

The tracker gathers data that policymakers, public health officials, advocates, and community organizers can use to implement policy changes and ensure health equity for underserved populations.

Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, helped set up the Health Equity Tracker. In addition to funding the project with $ 1.5 million, Google.org provided more than 18 Google.org fellows who have worked closely with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute over the past 9 months. The scholars have committed more than 15,000 working hours to the project and offer expertise in the areas of data analysis, engineering, project development, UX research and design support for the tracker.

Gilead also contributed to the project by allocating $ 1 million to develop the tracker, form a Black Health Equity Alliance, and form a COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force. The alliance has partnered with black organizations to make public announcements and promote the vaccination of this population.

Dawes said while the tracker doesn’t specifically track the differences in cancer treatment, he sees it as a potentially valuable use of the technology.

“The intended purpose of this tracker is to provide the much-needed context for what health equity really looks like while highlighting the impact of social and political determinants of health on outcomes. When I think about the potential use of this tracker, our neighbors and loved ones who have battled cancer come first, ”Dawes told Healio. “How many birthdays would have been celebrated if your cancer had been detected or prevented in time?”

Dawes emphasized the importance of early cancer detection, noting that racial differences often act as barriers to rapid detection and treatment.

“I know that cancer screening is one of our best tools in the fight for a cancer-free future, but I also know that understanding the injustices that make screening difficult is our only path to a cancer-free future,” he said. “When we think of access to health, the uninsured population, which tends to be higher in ethnic minority communities, is most at risk of not having it tomorrow. At the Satcher Health Leadership Institute, we just hope that by developing this easy-to-use health equity tracker, we can continue to do our part to ensure a fairer future for cancer care. “

Those looking to explore the tracker can visit https://healthequitytracker.org.

For more informations:

Daniel E.. Dawes contactable at Satcher Health Leadership Institute, 720 Westview Drive SW, Atlanta, GA 30310; Email: [email protected].

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