Center on Gender Equity and Health, UC San Diego

To elevate societal understanding and addressing of gender inequities, their intersection with other social inequities, and their impacts on population health and development via a) refinement and national uptake of evidence-based gender measurement, b) capacity building for local adaptation of measures to country contexts for production of high quality gender data, and c) monitoring change in these gender data indicators at scale and over time. To that end, we have created the EMERGE Platform (emerge.ucsd.edu),which provides gender measures and training resources to improve the quality and quantity of gender data at a national and global scale. While the platform has high use (800 users per week), scale up of the platform for use in low resource contexts and use of the platform to crowdsource measurement needs and concerns for rapid data-driven decision-making would improve impact. To that end, we seek Elevate Prize funding a) to increase the marketability and use of EMERGE, particularly in low resource settings, with the goal of increasing global capacities in gender data b) to develop crowdsourcing mechanisms through the platform for rapidly identifying and meeting measurement needs and data findings for impact, particularly in low resource and crisis (e.g., pandemic, conflict) contexts.

I am Indian-American born and raised in Mississippi in the 1970s-1980s, under U.S. civil rights progress and backlash. My consciousness of racial/ethnic and gender inequities came early in life, through observation and direct experiences. I began my career as a behavioral scientist in the early 1990s, researching HIV and women and finding that their health risks were tied to gender-based vulnerabilities (e.g., partner violence, sex trade) as well as racial/ethnic and economic inequities. These findings highlighted to me the vital role of data in guiding health interventions and policies. My research on social and gender inequities in health and development, combined with my capacity for leadership, led to my founding the Center on Gender Equity and Health (GEH) with the aforementioned goals of building the body of evidence on gender inequities and population health and development and guiding evidence-based program and policy solutions. Since its founding in 2013, GEH has received over $40 million in grants, generating impactful social science and public health data in partnership with organizations and governments around the world. In 2016, GEH developed EMERGE to build local to global gender measurement and data capacities, in line with a vision to support locally-driven change and impact.

Gender inequities (e.g., partner and sexual violence against women and girls, community violence against men and boys, hate crimes against transgender people) and related social inequities (e.g., poverty, systemic racism, rural isolation) severely impact population health and development cross-nationally. For example, one in three women has been a victim of partner violence globally, and at the same time, 80% of homicide victims globally are men, largely in community contexts. Gender roles and gender norms contribute to these disparities, and evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in regressive gender norms and practices that exacerbate gender inequities in health and development. However, many nations lack data on these key issues due to inadequate support or capacities, and the absence of such data can impede both recognition of gender inequities and tracking of change in these over time.

We propose to improve global gender data quality and quantity via a) increased global marketability and use of EMERGE, a platform providing gender data measurement and training resources, and b) development of crowdsourcing mechanisms on the EMERGE platform for rapid identification and meeting of gender data needs for global researchers, particularly in crisis times such as during or following a pandemic. 

Innovations of Approach:

1) Much of the work on social inequities emphasize race/ethnicity or poverty, with gender considered secondary or not at all. This work centralizes analysis on gender with an intersectional lens, allowing for consideration of gender with race/ethnicity, poverty, and other social factors.

2) Gender analysis frequently is limited to qualitative data or data on gender gaps. The EMERGE platform recognizes the expanded range of gender measures indicators, allowing for quantifiable measures of empowerment, such as agency and choice, as well as gender gaps.

3) Often work on social inequities is solely designed for their identification but not for evaluation of change. This project supports gender data and measurement at scale, allowing for consideration of both identification and change over time for prioritized indicators.

4) Data indicators for data-driven decision-making often are determined via a top-down approach, maintaining final decision-making by those in higher income nations, though emphasis and tracking for change is focused on low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). This project supports voice and influence from data scientists engaging with the EMERGE platform via crowdsourcing to assess LMIC or regional priorities better. Our partnership with UN Women for SDG5 facilitates use of these crowdsourcing findings.

The EMERGE platform supports data driven decision-making (DDDM), a well-documented approach that has demonstrated effectiveness in improving knowledge and practices across a number of domains, including health, economics, politics, and education. DDDM involves use of data to guide programmatic and policy decisions.  

As nations rebuild subsequent to the pandemic, clarity on the nature and value of gender measures and gender data in their country contexts can help national statistics offices to be at the ready to capture these in national surveys. These data are the required first step toward DDDM. Once data are available, there must then be awareness and use of these data and trust in data. EMERGE can ensure use of valid measures and build capacitites for measures use and quality data for DDDM. WIth requestd funding, we will also develop and maintain a robust communications effort to build awareness and use of data. Trust in data is a major concern, but can be facilitated by transparency, opportunity for civic participation, and accountability structures, all of which we will institute in our project.

Gender data are creating impact in terms of reducing inequities and improving the status of women and girls globally.