From January 2021 through December 2022, Visible Network Labs (VNL) collaborated with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the National Program Office (NPO) of Data Across Sectors for Health (DASH) on an evaluation of Phase Three of the DASH program.

DASH is a national initiative that provides funding, resources, and tools to help organizations in the public health, social services, and health care sectors share data. DASH has completed three phases of programming. In Phase Three, DASH continued its direct support for community data and information systems through funding and monitoring, and led the All In national learning network. DASH also pursued farther-reaching systems and policy changes to create the conditions for communities and states to build such data and information systems that improve health and health equity.

VNL conducted a developmental evaluation of DASH Phase Three programming, including the implementation of community-state policy partnerships, community grant-making and mentorship, peer learning initiatives and technical assistance, and networking and dissemination initiatives. The developmental evaluation aimed to understand if the following outcomes could be attributed to DASH’s unique contributions to, and role in, the field of multi-sector data sharing for health:

• Increasing nationwide engagement in building health data-sharing systems;
• Enabling collective capacity to build these systems; and
• Promoting policy changes that support these systems.

VNL, RWJF, and the DASH NPO also explored the overall impact of DASH on population health outcomes– specifically how communities, stakeholders, and end users link DASH implementation of the above activities, and their achievements, to improved outcomes in population health and health equity.