On Jul. 28, 2020, Gilead Sciences and the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine announced they will work together to develop a real-time, public-facing and comprehensive health equity data platform to help address the impact of COVID-19 and other diseases on communities of color.

Data collected since the beginning of the pandemic show that the COVID-19 disproportionately impacts racial and ethnic minority groups, particularly Black Americans. The new platform will provide the ability to collect and study the demographic disparities associated with COVID-19, with the goal of using this data to help create actionable, evidence-based policy changes to attain health equity and ensure that disproportionately impacted communities receive resources and support.

Gilead will initially provide $1 million to Satcher for the project and also to support the creation of a Black Health Equity Alliance, composed of national thought leaders, community representatives, scholars, researchers and policymakers, that will help coordinate COVID-19 education, training, information exchange and dissemination and policy analysis. The data map will go live and be available to the public in the fourth quarter of 2020.