At the 2023 Health Datapalooza, AcademyHealth announced the second annual Health Equity DataJam. The DataJam, which was first announced in 2022, is an effort to harness the power of data and the creativity of the public to answer pressing questions related to health and health care disparities.
The winner of the 2023 Health Equity DataJam is Summit Consulting, LLC for their solution “Mental Health in the DMV (MIND)”. Summit Consulting was recognized for their design, technical achievement, innovation, relevance, and potential for impact.
Mental Health in the DMV (MIND), submitted by Summit Consulting, LLC
MIND is an intuitive application that can help individuals with mental health issues take the first step toward receiving necessary and accessible care. MIND also promotes awareness and mindfulness for areas of future improvement. The main feature of the application is a set of sliding bars for three modes of transportation: walking, public transit, and biking. The user can adjust the bars based on their preference for each mode when calculating transit scores. MIND also includes a filtering feature on all mental health facilities in the DMV generated from the dataset at FindTreatment.gov.
For the 2023 Health Equity DataJam, all entries were required to leverage a combination of data hosted by HealthData.gov and other publicly available sources to create innovative digital tools and actionable insights to help close the gaps in health and health care and ensure equitable access and wellness for all. Participants chose from one of six challenge tracts that included Access to Care, Cancer Innovation, COVID-19 and Long COVID, Infection-Associated Chronic Illnesses, Kidney Diseases, and Lyme Innovation. AcademyHealth is grateful to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the HealthData.gov team for once again providing the data sets and challenge questions to support this DataJam.
As the professional home for health services and health policy researchers, and the host of the Health Datapalooza, AcademyHealth is committed to the ongoing development of innovative research methods, enhanced access to and appropriate use of data, and the application of evidence to improve health care decision making. The winning team will receive three free registrations to a 2024 AcademyHealth conference of their choice as well as complementary one-year membership in AcademyHealth for three individuals. The winning team will also have the opportunity to share their solution with the public through a 2023 Health Equity DataJam webinar.
AcademyHealth also recognized one Honorable Mention, the NIMHD HDPulse Team, who will receive a certificate of recognition.
Using HDPulse to Identify, Understand, and Reduce Disparities in Kidney Disease Mortality, submitted by NIMHD HDPulse Team
HDPulse is a free-to-use online resource devoted to helping communities, researchers, and policymakers connect with data and interventions that can improve minority health and reduce health disparities. HDPulse consists of two complementary portals: the Data Portal leverages publicly available population health data from over ten different sources to help identify, quantify, and visualize health disparities; the Interventions Portal provides access to a repository of interventions that have demonstrated success in improving minority health or reducing health disparities in community or clinical settings.
Taken together, the entries, honorable mention, and winners of the 2023 Health Equity DataJam demonstrate the enormous potential of public-private collaboration to accelerate innovation that improves health and bridges disparities. Additionally, the submitted solutions highlight the potential these collaborations can have for transforming raw, disparate data sources into actionable solutions that can be used by other researchers, policymakers, public health officials, and health systems leaders.