Gender Equity Unit Launches Website to Promote Gender Equity in Health Data

The Gender Equity Unit, housed within the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Data for Health Initiative, has launched a new website aimed at expanding global access to free materials and resources that support effective integration of gender equity into health data.

The website serves as an online repository to bolster the collection, analysis, and dissemination of sex and gender health data – primarily in low- and middle-income countries – in an effort to improve health outcomes for all.

The new website includes more than 40 pieces of curated content aimed at driving gender inclusion in health data, practice, and policy, including:

• A Human Rights Approach to Gender-Inclusive Civil Registration and Vital Statistics
• Male Engagement in Gender Equity Work
• Solutions to Close the Gender Data Gap.

Website users can take a quick evidence-informed quiz based on the World Health Organization’s Gender Responsive Scale to determine where to start learning about gender equity in public health data on the website. The website also encourages health professionals to recommend helpful tools and engage with the Gender Equity Unit and other health data professionals promoting gender equity.

The new resource is designed for partners and countries in the Data for Health Initiative, a larger program designed to assist low- and middle-income countries in improving public health data collection, analysis and use. The new website represents a collaboration among the Bloomberg School, CDC Foundation, Global Health Advocacy Incubator, WHO, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and Vital Strategies.

“Health systems and partners around the world need to be guided by complete sex and gender-inclusive data to improve health outcomes for everyone. Often, barriers such as understanding the crucial role sex and gender data play in identifying health disparities and promoting health equity make this difficult,” said Michelle Kaufman, PhD, associate professor in the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Health, Behavior and Society and primary investigator of the Gender Equity Unit. “We’re delighted to make the Gender Equity Unit website available to public health professionals around the world to help with decision-making, planning and supporting real-world initiatives around gender and health.”

About the Gender Equity Unit

The Gender Equity Unit’s mission is to create a new global health data ecosystem that counts and values the lives and experiences of all people. Launched in 2021 and funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Gender Equity Unit leads a range of research and practice activities. The unit provides free technical assistance to Data for Health affiliates for data collection and policy application. The Gender Equity Unit’s team also conducts research; tracks country progress towards key gender indicators; and builds country partner capacity to integrate gender equity work through training sessions, webinars, and mentorship. For more information visit: www.genderhealthdata.org/.