DataHaven, a New Haven-based nonprofit that provides policymakers data reports on community issues, recently launched a new project focused on gender equity in Fairfield County.

The initiative is the result of a partnership with the Fairfield County’s Community Foundation — an organization that aims to solve regional issues, including “eliminating disparities” in income, education and employment, among other categories, according to its website. Mark Abraham ’04, executive director of DataHaven, told the News that the new project will seek to meet the needs of stakeholders outside of the Elm City.

“Our goal is to make data accessible for communities throughout the state by encouraging sharing of data across different institutions and community partners,” Abraham said.

Abraham told the News that the initiative is a “needs and opportunities” assessment for women and girls in Fairfield County. As a result, DataHaven plans on conducting interviews and meeting with focus groups with women of different ages to compile information for a report on the issue.

The nonprofit hopes to measure statistics including women in leadership, economic opportunities for women — such as income and home ownership — as well as health and education. The objective of the report, Abraham said, is to provide a “broad portrait” of the issue.

“So it’s designed to provide a broad portrait by interviewing women and letting women and girls react to that information,” Abraham said. “They can develop priorities for investment in the region and for other action they may want to take to address those concerns.”

Data Haven also recently launched a project that analyzes health equity throughout Connecticut, which revolves around creating a statewide health equity report. The Connecticut Health Foundation, a health-focused philanthropy that aims to ensure affordable and high-quality health care for state residents, distributed $535,000 in grants to eleven groups tackling health care issues this year. The Elm City’s DataHaven received $55,000.

While Abraham said the project will mirror DataHaven’s Community Wellbeing Indexes — which measure parameters including the quality of health care, education and economic progress in each city in the state — this report will focus specifically on health equity.

Garrick Wong, the organization’s senior program officer, said in an email to the News that the organization believes the report will provide a more detailed and “informative glimpse” into the causes of racial and ethnic health disparities.

“This grant to DataHaven aligns with our strategic objective to increase the collection, reporting, and use of data stratified by race and ethnicity to improve health outcomes for people of color,” Wong added. “Our hope is that this project will strengthen the capacity of policy makers to integrate health equity data in to planning and decision making.”

DataHaven, which was founded in 1992 by Yale, the City of New Haven, Yale New Haven Health and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this month. To mark the occasion, the organization launched a series of annual Innovation Awards to recognize organizations using data to benefit communities in Connecticut.

Angela Xiao contributed reporting.

Aakshi Chaba | aakshi.chaba@yale.edu