Adaptation and Development of the Equity Mapping Tool for Community Care Organizations Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Abstract

Context: The Equity Mapping Tool (EMT), a set of integrated tools providing rapid up-to-date COVID-19 data was previously developed for local health departments and health care systems in Franklin County, Ohio, to guide decisions about mobile vaccination. We aimed to engage, extend, and enhance the EMT to 12 Pathway Community HUBs (HUBs) in Ohio, connecting at-risk individuals to health and social services across 61 counties.

Program: This was an innovation demonstration project in HUBs to increase community resiliency during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the project goals was to provide Community Health Workers (CHWs) working with HUBs with local data for local decisions to advance the health of all Ohioans by engaging, extending, and enhancing the EMT.

Implementation: We used a continuous improvement process called the Engagement, Analytics, Translation (EAT) Framework to engage, extend, and enhance the EMT for HUBs. Engagement activities consisted of focus groups with HUB staff and consultation with CHW Advisory Council, facilitated the co-creation of EMT tools for HUBs and their subsequent enhancement. These activities guided analytics tasks by identifying data requirements, curation, and guiding the development of reports and dashboard for the extended EMT. In translation phase, EMT products were disseminated to HUBs, whose feedback during subsequent engagement activities guided further analytical workflows to enhance EMT.

Results: Engagement activities resulted in the identification of shared goals. Public health data needs of HUBs were centered around their populations served, health disparities of focus, and services provided. The capacity to access the EMT interactive dashboard and PDF reports was extended to all 12 HUBs.

Discussion: The collaboration between academic, public health, and community health partners was critical to extending and enhancing the EMT to HUBs. Cycles of EAT helped to be responsive to HUBs' need for data and build their capacity for improving community resiliency.