KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - New health data dashboards unveiled this week offer detailed information about health inequities in Missouri, including information from specific ZIP codes across the state.
The Missouri Hospital Association released the Health Equity Dashboards on Monday. They are based on 41 million individual hospital claims of 5.4 million Missourians - nearly 90 percent of the state's residents - from fiscal years 2018, 2019 and 2020.
It shows, for example, Black residents of St. Louis and Kansas City suffer from asthma at twice the rate of white residents and breaks down the rates in ZIP codes within the cities, the Kansas City Star reported.
"What it really delivers clearly is a view of where and how inequities exist in the system and what, with targeted efforts, can be done to improve health outcomes," said Dave Dillon, spokesman for the association.
The tool - web.mhanet.com/health-equity-dashboards - was designed primarily to help hospitals promote health equity but can be used by anyone concerned about the community's health, association officials said.
The new tool's Health Disparity Explorer also identifies disparities by race, age, gender and insurance coverage.