Join the online community of health experts and advocates talking about how they’re using data to make healthy change on the Center's new blog: Health DATAbytes.

The conversation aims to help anyone -- from beginners to experts -- understand and use data to seek funding, plan and evaluate programs, and advance policies that build healthy communities, whether it's reducing air pollution levels, to campaigning for an obesity-fighting soda tax, to addressing health inequities -- and more!

Health DATAbytes.org features expert commentary, tips and tools, data resources, links to upcoming AskCHIS and other data trainings, as well as Center publications, news and events. The goal? "Turning knowledge into action!" -- the motto of Health DATA, the Center's data training and public service program.

Already some of the state's most highly regarded health advocates have weighed in with stories about how they've used health data to make a difference. Among them is Ellen Wu, executive director of California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, who describes how her organization successfully used health data to advocate for a diverse board of directors for the new California Health Benefits Exchange. Cliff Sarkin, policy director for the Insure the Uninsured Project, describes the "dangerous" assumptions some make about the uninsured and uses data to paint a more accurate picture. These experts will be joined by the Center's own staff as well as Health DATA's community trainers, providing on-the-ground wisdom from the local communities in which they work.

"It's exciting to bring all these voices together in one space to share challenges and successes of using health data in their communities," said Peggy Toy, director of the Center's Health DATA Program. "This conversation gives us a unique opportunity for anyone interested in healthy communities to learn and share how to use health data to achieve their goals for change."

Health DATAbytes is just one of Health DATA's new initiatives, which also include new trainings in how to use the online health data query tool, AskCHIS, as well as two new projects:

• ALERT (Assessment of Local Environmental Risk Training to Reduce Health Disparities): a training and education project that helps Los Angeles communities, in partnership with academics and other experts, combat air pollution in their neighborhoods.

• Turning Data into Action (a local CDC REACH CORE project): a training project to assist two immigrant communities develop action plans to fight air pollution in their neighborhoods.

Want to contribute? Contact us! Email Porsche Johnson at porschej@ucla.edu with your ideas and any feedback.