Five NNIP partners participate in new CDC Foundation project on equitable use of data

• The CDC Foundation has awarded five NNIP partners a $125,000 grant to participate in a multi-city initiative to promote equitable data use for healthy communities.  Grantees include Neighborhood Nexus (Atlanta, GA); Data Driven Detroit (Detroit, MI), DataWorks NC (Durham, NC), Community Information Now (San Antonio, TX) and The University Center for Social and Urban Research (Pittsburgh, PA).

From March 2022 to December 2023, each grantee will:

• Support the use of PLACES data by localities to design innovative solutions that address the social and structural factors that influence local community health outcomes; 
• Enhance opportunities for communities to help develop and then gain access to improved small area, localized data that include measures for equity, well-being and SDOH;
• Share potential questions related to race and other topics modules in the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System; and
• Synthesize and disseminate findings and lessons learned from community engagement discussions with national, state and local public health organizations

Their activities will provide guidance on framing and presenting results along with the necessary context of the root causes of the findings; incorporating an understanding of past harm resulting from misuse of data; and recognizing the need for accountability among data system designers, owners, and users.