ABSTRACT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a declaration reflecting what many already realized: racism is a threat to public health and a fundamental cause of health inequity in the United States. In 2020, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute released a series of reports to highlight the lack of data on maternal outcomes disaggregated by race and ethnicity, the link of pandemic-related changes to maternity care and preexisting inequities, and opportunities to improve maternal health equity after the pandemic.2 Before COVID-19, the United States was already experiencing a maternal morbidity and mortality crisis, and systemic racism has been a key driver of disparate maternal health outcomes. [...]supporting the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum to implement the Data Equity Project created an opportunity to engage community leaders across the country, including community public health organizations and social justice advocates, to address health challenges and provide local and regional community organizations with the tools, training, and organizational capacity building needed to advance health equity.5 Beyond the research itself, we must think critically about who interprets the results. Expanding the Bench offers a network and pipeline for diverse evaluators and builds demand among funders for those practicing culturally responsive and equitable evaluation.6 These evaluations must comprehensively assess the research, including whether the research methods or approaches started with culturally appropriate planning and design, set a goal to advance equity, developed cocreated questions with the community meant to benefit from the research, amplified the voice of the community in data collection and disaggregated the data for various populations in the community, and validated the findings with the community.