What Makes Populations More at Risk to the Effects of Public Health Emergencies and Disease?
Every community must prepare for and respond to hazardous events, whether a natural disaster like a tornado or a disease outbreak, or a human-made event such as a harmful chemical spill. Several factors, including poverty, lack of access to transportation, lack of healthcare infrastructure and crowded housing may limit a community’s ability to prevent human suffering and financial loss in a disaster. These factors are known to impact populations’ vulnerability to public health emergencies or disease or disease outbreaks.
What is the Minority Health Index?
In 2021, the HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to launch the Minority Health Index. The Minority Health Index was updated in June 2025. The Minority Health Index combines the over 15 social and medical factors. The factors are developed using five-year estimates of demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) 2018-2022, and are organized into six themes:
- Socioeconomic Status
- Household Composition
- Racial and Ethnic Minority Status
- Housing Type and Transportation
- Health Care Infrastructure and Access
- Health Risks
The Minority Health Index also expands upon the CDC SVI to include statistics for specific race and ethnicity categories and languages. Specifically, data is included for the five racial and ethnic minority groups currently defined by the 1997 OMB Directive 15 and the top five languages spoken by populations with limited English proficiency (LEP) at the county level.
How Can I Use the Minority Health Index?
The Minority Health Index can be used as the basis for research, strategic planning, program design, and evaluation related to response and recovery for public health emergencies or disease outbreaks. Specifically, the Minority Health Index databases and dashboard can be used to:
- Advance chronic disease prevention and other health priorities.
- Plan community-focused intervention efforts.
- Identify communities with individuals that have limited English proficiency (and the languages spoken in those communities) who will need language assistance for outreach efforts and services.
- Support program planning and evaluation efforts, including those that may link Minority Health Index with other databases.
- Identify medically under-resourced communities for which strategic efforts are needed to improve health care infrastructure and access.
- Plan community-level efforts to address systemic factors related to modifiable risk factors and non-medical drivers of health.
- Help decide how many public health and emergency personnel are required to assist people in case of emergencies at the county level.
- Foster multi-sector collaboration within communities by offering a tool that addresses place-based risk factors with data.
- Inform the design of targeted programs and services to address chronic disease disparities.
- Inform research examining the correlation between socioeconomic, healthcare infrastructure, and demographic characteristics of an area.
Date Last Reviewed: November 2025