Introduction

Across the globe, awareness of racial and ethnic health inequities and the need for healthcare systems to address them are growing.1 In many countries, teams working in healthcare institutions are encouraged to stratify quality metrics by race and ethnicity as part of the movement to identify and disrupt health inequities.2 The lack of standard definitions for race and ethnicity and restrictions on how and where these data can be collected make collecting high-quality data challenging. Stratifying quality metrics by race and ethnicity is further challenged by the risk of undermining the core goal of disrupting inequities.1 Although presenting patient data stratified by race and ethnicity helps identify health inequities, such data can also reinforce the belief that differences in health outcomes are caused by biological instead of social and structural factors. The myth that race is a biological construct is dangerous because it can result in apathy and inaction. Focusing on racial and ethnic identity can also misdirect change efforts towards the individuals and communities experiencing racism instead of the root causes of racism, found in systems and structures.2 3

Data presentation is a design process that can contribute to either the reproduction of inequities or their elimination.2 Advocates and scholars have long argued that antiracist data practices are needed in the movement to achieve health equity.4 5 Healthcare teams need strategies to examine and present racial and ethnic health inequities with a racial equity lens. A racial equity lens challenges the unintended consequences of a society where racism is pervasive. Using a racial equity lens for data presentation encodes the value of racial equity in data presentation.2

This viewpoint presents strategies to support teams to collect, share and use quality data to expose the effects of structural racism and other inequitable social …