Health inequalities exist in most countries, and different levels of provision are a fundamental aspect of this. New research from the University of Washington explores whether data can help to better identify gaps in healthcare provision in rural areas.
“Populations in rural areas already have suffered disproportionately from a lot of negative health outcomes,” the researchers say. “Then on top of that, they lack the data, capacity, and infrastructure to understand and better address those problems.”
The researchers believe that such data does exist however, but it’s often difficult to access and use. They examined the health data situation in four states in the north west of the United States, with the ultimate aim of helping communities better use data to tackle health inequality.
“Rural communities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska face high poverty and are home to large populations of Alaska Native, Native American, Latino, and other residents who are often marginalized and impacted by health disparities,” the researchers say.
Sharing data
The project, known as SHARE-NW, is currently in it’s third year and their work to date has uncovered three core barriers to using data in rural communities:
- A lack of easy access to timely data
- Poor data quality in rural and tribal communities
- Lack of skills that prevent rural leaders from using this data
“You may have a very seemingly homogenous population on the face of it,” the researchers explain. “But you have small population groups that are very disproportionately impacted by certain issues, and leaders in those communities may not be aware that these problems exist, let alone how deeply individuals are affected.”
The team are developing a more accessible database, with a number of visualization tools to help local officials make better, data-driven decisions from the data. The hope is that they will be able to identify local needs more effectively and respond to them efficiently.
They have identified six key health areas that emerged from the data that were consistent across the communities that they will focus their energies on to begin with. These include obesity, diabetes and mental health.
“SHARE-NW is all about building community capacity and bringing information to where it is so deeply needed so that data-driven and community-engaged decisions can be made that will directly affect population-level health disparities and build health equity,” the researchers conclude.
