Arushi Arora illustrates how data reduces health disparities and makes healthcare accessible and safe for all

Without diligent data tracking and analytics, the great inequalities in health and health care based on geography and wealth would be unmapped. For example, based on the World Health Statistics report published by the WHO 2022, life expectancy was 65.1 years in low income countries (LICs) compared with 80.9 years in high income countries (HICs). Similar trends were observed in maternal mortality rates with about 94% of all deaths attributed to LICs and MICs. Armed with the knowledge that survey data provides, policy-makers and healthcare professionals can now make more informed decisions as well as push for reforms in healthcare.

Arushi Arora, Fellow of Medical Research Council, GJ and SAS Eminent Fellow, is a data expert who works diligently on making such insights known with her analytical skills, thus impacting patients, medical institutions, and nationwide systems at large. As important as data collection is, without someone like Arushi who can make sense of the data, there would be far greater disparities and public health concerns. Data has become an indispensable tool in medical drug discoveries, monitoring clinical trials, analyzing treatment effectiveness, and much more. On patient level, the blueprint of every individual's health experience is made up of data points. How did your body react to a new vitamin? Did the chemotherapy treatment shrink the cancerous tumor? If so, by how much? Monitoring and tracking data on an individual and a broader, systemic level is the challenge that the healthcare industry is up against, but Arora drives solutions.

For medical institutions, managing data and turning a series of numbers into actionable insights is challenging, especially because of the volume of data that exists today. Hospitals, for example, work with individual patient data, clinical research data, operational data and surveys or registries that cover information pertaining to a neighborhood, state or entire nation. Arora works for the Mount Sinai Health System in New York where she is responsible for end-to-end data management for many research projects that fundamentally impact how Mount Sinai serves its patients.

The data that Arushi works with is sensitive, requiring her to understand and adhere to strict HIPAA regulations and corporate standards. To her, keeping sensitive patient data secure is part of ensuring that healthcare is made more accessible and safer for all people. She has a passion for using data to improve health outcomes for individuals and the communities she serves. Arushi's work supports low-income communities, individuals with disabilities, with substance use disorder, and more. Though she's not a medical provider herself, her work makes healthcare more equitable for patients all over New York and across United States. Her education at the University of Delhi, where she majored in Human Development paved the way for a successful career in Public Health and motivated her to develop an expertise in Epidemiology.

Before diving into data, Arora trained as a nutritionist at the National Heart Institute in New Delhi. There, she experienced the relationship between patients and providers, gaining an understanding of the patient data that goes into diagnosing diseases, prescribing therapeutic nutrition plans, and helping patients recover back to health. Fascinated by the importance of data, she started working as a research analyst to understand the effectiveness of certain healthcare initiatives. Arushi's research findings have led to institutional reforms, treatment updates, and the overall success of new medical advancements.

Arushi has worked with healthcare data long enough to know just how critical it is for the success of the human race, and now, she passes that knowledge to her peers. She has spent time teaching the incoming generation of public health professionals how to employ statistical methods and properly conduct data analysis in the healthcare field. She recently received a "Gold" Award for her work in education from the prestigious Globee Golden Bridge Awards.

Data is the reason that humans live longer than they ever did historically; data is the reason that an infection is uncomfortable and painful instead of deadly; data is the reason that medical professionals can provide tailored care to their patients. But without data experts to make sense of it all, the data would be meaningless, and healthcare would not be any more accessible than it used to be.