Health Equity Resources

UC Davis and UC Davis Health bring together an unparalleled range of knowledge and experience to identify, classify, create, and share material supportive of health equity in research. In this section, you will find links to internal UC Davis resources, useful websites and datasets, tools and templates to make research participation more accessible to special populations across the life span, guidance for forming or joining a research advisory board, a compilation of items on health equity data, and strategies for searching databases and building tailored datasets.

How to use this resource
 These first three resource tabs can be searched by keyword🔍, filtered and sorted by field(s). If you have questions about the tool or would like a consultation, please contact us at HERO@ucdavis.edu or 916-734-3746.

Tip: Not seeing any results? Clear the prior keyword searches, filters and sorts and try again.

The UC Davis Library Health Equity Guide provides links to recommended information resources for conducting health equity research, including search tools, databases, journals, and related library guides from UC Davis and other institutions. Off-campus access to online resources (e.g., databases, journal articles, e-books) is available to UC Davis students, faculty, staff, and clinicians -- see "Access VPN" for details.

Access to the Blaisdell Medical Library has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic -- all users should consult the website for current information. For members of the public, please contact the library for more information: BMLref@ucdavis.edu.

Data Assets - HERO Website - Airtable Explore the "Data Assets - HERO Website" view on Airtable.

The Health Experience Research Network (HERN) brings patients’ voices to American health care. HERN is a non-profit, non-commercial network of U.S.-based research teams affiliated with NIH (National Institute for Health) Clinical and Translational Award (CTSA) hubs and the Veterans Administration, working collaboratively to build a repository of evidence- based patient experiences with specific health conditions or aspects of health care.

HERN resources are intended for:

  • Patients and families wanting to learn from the experiences of others
  • Clinicians seeking to understand aggregate patient expectations and experience
  • Educators wanting to include the patient perspective in teaching
  • Researchers who want to improve health care by incorporating patients’ perspectives
  • Policy Makers eager to highlight patient experience while avoiding anecdotal accounts  

The HERO (Health Equity Resources and Outreach) program sponsors HERN training for researchers, research program administrators, and community partners interested in building, funding, or designing research on new topics. Alumni of the 3-day trainings are invited to join the national HERN Learning Community. HERO also coordinates ongoing UC Davis HERN cohort meetings to support the development of new HERN projects.

HERN applies a rigorous qualitative methodology called DIPEx (Database of Individual Patients Experiences), developed at Oxford University and adopted by an international community of researchers. Details on the DIPEx approach together with content developed by HERN research teams can be found on the HERN website, including representative video and audio clips from in-depth interviews conducted with patients with experience in the topics investigated to date (traumatic brain injury in veterans, depression in young adults, cancer risk that runs in families).

New HERN research projects are underway to examine patient experiences with breast cancer, childhood cancer, adolescent and young adult cancer, gulf war veterans’ health experience, gulf war illness, and opioid use disorder.

How do I get started

If you are interested in HERN training, or in conducting or supporting a module on a particular health topic, please contact us at hero@ucdavis.edu.