Abstract 240: Leveraging Health Equity Data To Drive Public Health And Health Care Practice, 2010-2020
Objectives: Increasing the understanding of the variety of data sources around health equity that are available and how to use these data to drive public health and health care practice is critical to address inequities and improve health outcomes. The social determinants of health (SDOH), factors related to where people live, work, play, and age, are strongly tied to health outcomes. Primary and secondary SDOH can be used to understand the context of the issues faced at the individual and community levels and can help inform appropriate interventions and support the connection to available resources.
Methods: The Heath Equity Profile, available from the public facing Florida Community Health Assessment Resource Toolset (FLHealthCHARTS) website, contains over 150 indicators at the county-level related to demographics, income and employment, housing, education, risk behaviors, access to care, access to food, and various health outcomes, including prevalence, incidence, morbidity, and mortality. The indicators contained in the Health Equity Profile were used to identify counties with the largest SDOH disparities and largest burden of poor health outcomes for several initiatives focused on increasing community-clinical linkages and leveraging cross-sector partnerships to address health outcomes.
Findings: Public health initiatives focused on hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease have leveraged the data contained in the Health Equity Profile to select geographic areas for implementation. Using these data, interventions were able to be deployed in areas with the greatest need and opportunity to benefit. Understanding the conditions under which individuals live is critical to the successful implementation of both public health and health care improvement efforts. Various data sources are widely available that can provide additional context and guidance for the development of tailored interventions to improve individual and population health.