Table 4 Recommendations for Centering Health Equity in PPH
From: Precision public health after Covid-19: a scoping review
PPH tools/methods such as vulnerability indexes, near-real time surveillance and pathogen sequencing can be incorporated into public health research and interventions. Below are some questions, considerations, and recommendations for public health researchers considering PPH methods: |
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1. Consider the cost of big data approaches vs. the benefit before adopting PPH methods. |
2. Center health equity questions in PPH research. |
3. Go beyond risk stratification and address the root causes of health inequity. |
4. Ground research and interventions in robust community partnerships at all stages of the research process. |
5. Create interdisciplinary research teams that include social sciences and humanities scholars to better understand “the mechanisms that perpetual health disparities” [29] |
6. Review relevant literature on bias in data collection and interpretation and consider the politics of data in your project. Is the data collection sufficient or is it defective in some ways? Who and what is left out? What biases are (re)produced? Whose lives are protected and whose lives are made vulnerable within data surveillance infrastructures? |
7. Pay attention to questions of data equity in data collection, dissemination, and usability for minoritized communities [28]. Review the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship and the CARE principles for Indigenous data governance [41]. Make sure data is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. Contribute to the larger project of creating “improved, harmonized, and nationwide data collection systems that are as free a possible from the influences of structural racism and inclusive of all racial and ethnic groups” [27]. |
8. Assess PPH projects to determine whether they have met their health equity goals. Allen et al. recommend that researchers “use validated measures and self-report to assess racial equity and racism, including qualitative methods to amplify the voices of those with lived experiences of racism” [29]. |