Transforming Public Health Data Systems

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the gaps in our public health and health data infrastructure and illuminated the many ways in which they perpetuate vast health inequities. To work toward a modernized health data system, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) established a first-of-its-kind National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems to reimagine how data are collected, shared, and used, and identify the investments needed to improve health equity. RWJF commissioned the RAND Corporation to produce a series of white papers that anchored this process by describing the current landscape, emerging innovations, and the opportunities for transforming and transitioning to a new public health data system. The papers were informed by an environmental literature scan, review of reports on public health data transformation, and stakeholder interviews. In addition, the papers included insights from 20 organizations that received RWJF grants for innovative work related to data equity and data systems integration.