LAUSR

Reliable and valid measurement is the foundation of efforts to eliminate health disparities— health differences that adversely affect disadvantaged populations. With increasing availability of data and methodological advances, health disparities researchers have many options for measurement approaches. This editorial urges health disparities researchers and relevant organizations to seek harmonization for cohesion in measurement practice while preserving the flexibility that has facilitated innovation to date, through the implementation of eight recommendations from National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities’ (NIMHD’s) recent Measurement Science workshop. To harmonize, the health disparities community needs the sort of community-wide, extensive consensus building that has been seen in other fields, such as the Panel on CostEffectiveness in Health and Medicine and the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT). NIMHD can be the centralizing force that guides research to adopt common indicators, which can align with clinical care to strengthen the science of health disparities. NIMHD has begun to guide the field by launching the Measurement Science Visioning Pillar (NIMHD.gov). The harmonization and recommendations suggested from the Measurement Science workshop pertain to three overarching components of measuring health disparities: (1) identifying common health disparity outcome indicators, (2) promoting common health disparity indictors and sentinel indicators that harmonize health disparity reporting, and (3) transparency about the value judgments underlying health disparities measures.