Giving Compass' Take:

• Panelists at the Women Deliver 2019 Conference discussed how to achieve data equity to tackle global health challenges, and all agreed that collaboration would be essential. 

• How can data equity lead to health equity? 

• Read about how you can make an impact on global health. 

We live in a world steeped in predictive technologies – smart products and services use our data to guess movie selections, alert us before we’re out of groceries, and track our every heartbeat and step. These types of innovations have immense potential to tackle our global challenges in health – they could predict which mothers will have high-risk births, where to best deploy limited vaccine supplies, and identify communities that would benefit from sexual and reproductive health education.

While innovations in data are commonplace in some communities, sharing them equitably across the world is not a simple task. To move forward, collaboration is key.

Earlier this month, I moderated a panel at the Women Deliver Conference on the power of data to improve health. Panelists joined us from all corners—country government, civil society, and the private sector, and each approached the challenge from a unique angle, encouraging us to consider a range of opportunities and challenges, from program design and ethics to artificial intelligence.

Each raised key issues as we discussed data equity for health equity, but my main takeaway was that all of their diverse voices – and many more – need a seat at the table if we are to make progress.

Now more than ever, when the data equity gap can widen or begin to close, we need to remember discussions like these, and use them to find our way back to working together. We must continue to form alliances with each other, especially at the country level, both with like-minded allies, and with those with different perspectives.

Read the full article about leveraging health data for collaboration by Naveen Rao at The Rockefeller Foundation.