Virginia Accountable Health Equity and Action Dashboard (VA-AHEAD): Community Framing of Equity Data to Support Clinical and Translational Science

VIRGINIA ACCOUNTABLE HEALTH EQUITY AND ACTION DASHBOARD: COMMUNITY FRAMING OF EQUITY DATA TO SUPPORT CLINICAL TRANSLATIONAL SCIENCE PROJECT SUMMARY Disease burden, healthcare delivery, health outcomes, and life expectancy differ strikingly across US populations and communities. Inequity is deeply rooted in the US healthcare system, and translational science

should study and address the structural biases that lead to disparities. To set priorities and focus research where needed, translational science teams and communities need to co-create data systems that allow them to identify health inequities and potential underlying causes; track trends, including the impact of their work;

and collaborate to develop priorities and solutions. The Wright Regional CCTS is a national leader at developing census tract measures to inform research, training, care, and policy. Our CTSA hub has developed the HealthLandscape Virginia geospatial and analytic data warehouse with novel community-level metrics that

span workforce, clinical care, community characteristics, social and economic factors, and health outcomes. We have used HealthLandscape and a novel bright spot and community asset mapping analysis, a blend of advanced analytics and community engagement, to identify communities that do better or worse than predicted

for opioid overdose deaths and potential causal factors. This approach needs to be expanded to a wider range of equity issues. Building on existing data, analytics, strengths in community engagement, and HLVA platform, we propose to develop the Virginia Accountable Health Equity and Action Dashboard (Va-AHEAD). Our work

will occur in four phases: (1) prioritize and co-create with the community new equity goals and measures, (2) identify bright spot communities that do better than expected and factors that may contribute to their success, (3) develop shared meaning, products, and action from the data, and (4) disseminate and support use of equity

content. To develop content, we will use unique person-level data (All-Payer Claims Database, state mortality data), community-level data sources, and authentic community engagement grounded in community-based participatory research and guided by our bright spot and community asset mapping approach. Content will be

configured in Va-AHEAD. For each equity topic, one of seven existing community advisory boards will support content development and usability design of content. We will form a new Equity Research Opportunity lab, a learning community to support use of the dashboard and products for equity research. Milestones to

demonstrate success include: (1) engage community partners to prioritize and coproduce content, (2) calculate new equity measures, (3) identify bright and cold spot communities and their equity solutions and needs, (4) engage researchers, learners, care team members, and policymakers to use the dashboard, and (5)

longitudinally track Va-AHEAD use and impact on translational science and equity outcomes. These efforts will address a longstanding translational science need—new data and analytics for health equity research determined by the communities that are experiencing inequities. The lessons and infrastructure emanating

from this project will produce a sustainable model that is scalable across the CTSA consortium.