Ryan White Disparities Calculator

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2023

It can be challenging to accurately identify health disparities among people with HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus). Based on service utilization data and our own observations, programs can often make reasonable and educated guesses of which subpopulations of people with HIV are experiencing disparities in achieving viral suppression or meeting other health outcome goals. The question is: How do we move from assumption to validation in a timely and efficient manner? Or how do we ensure that we aren’t missing disparities that may be less obvious? The Maricopa County Ryan White Program asked these questions when we developed a semi-automated disparities calculator using tools available within Microsoft Excel and data analysis to review health disparities for almost 200 subpopulations of people with HIV in our care system. The Maricopa County Ryan White Program’s (MCRW) Disparities Calculator took the guess work out of the equation and reduced the time-burden needed to evaluate disparities that we found with other such disparities calculators.