Rashida Dorsey
The 2011 Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities (the Action Plan) signified an unprecedented federal commitment to eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care. HHS monitored the Action Plan so that stakeholders could understand whether it had been carried out as expected and was having its intended impact on disparities. This commentary (1) describes the key facilitators of HHS’s process to monitor Action Plan implementation and (2) presents strategies to support data needs of others—such as HHS agencies and state and local governments—who monitor and evaluate similar strategic plans to increase health equity. The strategies include: (1) incorporating monitoring from the outset of strategic planning, (2) defining the purposes of monitoring, (3) including outcome targets, (4) developing logic models and identifying indicators, (5) assessing available data sources, (6) building capacity for data collection and reporting, and (7) collecting and reporting data on race and ethnicity.
