Can You Do Health Disparities Research with Publicly Available Datasets?

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Given the growing importance of identifying and reducing health disparities, it is important for radiologist researchers to engage in this space to promote evidence-based imaging disparities policy. However, researchers are often hindered by access to appropriate data to perform quality research.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: This paper reviews existing publicly available data sets that may be useful for performing imaging disparities research.

RESULTS: Multiple data sources are publicly available and have been used by previous researchers to examine imaging disparities.

CONCLUSIONS: This paper provides an overview of publicly available data sources that radiologists can use for imaging disparities research. Appropriate use of these data sources will require researchers to carefully consider the overall research question and level of analysis.