Hello! My name is Lauren Toledo, an evaluator with Deloitte Consulting LLP. I work with U.S federal health agencies to plan, design, and implement program evaluations.
Rad Resource
Today, I would like to highlight a new resource published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention: The Health Equity Indicators for Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Toolkit.
Grounded in the Socio-Ecological Model, the toolkit is a key resource for evaluators who wish to consider the social, economic, and environmental factors that contribute to cardiovascular health outcomes and disparities.
The toolkit provides resources for health care and public health professionals including:
- Indicators and measures to assess health equity in the focus areas of Genderism, Sexism, and Hetero-sexism; Health Care Access; Neighborhood Characteristics; Policy; Psychosocial Pathways; Racism; and Socioeconomic Factors
- Survey tools and links to existing datasets
- Guidance on how to use data to inform decision-making
- Examples of how elements of the toolkit have been used in public health practice
The focus area sections of the toolkit provide indicators and measures of health equity. For instance, under Neighborhood Characteristics, the toolkit provides evidence on how the neighborhoods in which we live impact our cardiovascular health along with a list of indicators of neighborhood quality, such as air and water quality, green space, and community safety. For each indicator, the toolkit outlines evidence for how the indicator influences cardiovascular health and methods for measuring the indicator using primary or secondary data. For example, the toolkit includes survey items to measure perceived community safety, like the Neighborhood Safety Scale, and also points to existing data sources, such as where to find information about the number of homicides per 100,000 population.
The toolkit website also provides an overview on how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed the toolkit. While this toolkit is a foundational resource for evaluators interested in monitoring and evaluating from a health equity perspective, it will continue to grow and be refined.
Once you have a chance to check out the toolkit, I would love to hear in the comments how you are thinking about using this resource to enhance your evaluation practice, especially if you’ve found applications for the toolkit beyond cardiovascular health. I’d also love to start a conversation about additional indicators or measures that should be included in the toolkit in the future!
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