We love expertise. It entertains us. It gives us hope. We trust it. We love expertise so much, we even quantified it: 10,000 hours of practice. That’s what it takes to become an expert. Strangely enough, there’s an important part of life where we don’t trust the experts to make decisions for us. But that might be changing in the State of Washington.

Sharing data across state agencies and community-based organizations is critical for advancing health equity and addressing complex health challenges that involve multiple sectors. Insights from individuals with lived expertise provide valuable context to inform data-sharing efforts that is critical to improving health equity.