204: Heard Voices, Unmet Needs: Addressing Intersectionality in Community Health Data for Substance Use Disorder

Engaging communities or sharing power and leadership requires addressing ethical and methodological aspects of how individuals with lived experiences are involved in data collection and interpretation. This session explores the structural barriers that prevent a comprehensive, intersectional understanding of the needs of people with conditions like Substance Use Disorder (SUD), using an overview of an NIH-funded community health assessment (CHA). Representing the fullness of stories from people with SUD in data was challenging. Further, in our secondary review of 71 CHAs, the extent to which communities are engaged and what happens with the information they share is unclear. This raises ethical considerations about addressing the power inherent in data. In breakout groups, attendees will learn from one another by addressing: (1) How do strategies need to evolve to capture intersectionality in data? And (2) What are the ethical considerations for evaluators in ensuring the use of data about complex identities?

Valerie Marshall