We're Previewing Our Community Indicators Data Portal at United Way Community Leaders Conference

HealthLandscape specializes in creating data portals that make community data accessible, updatable, and interactive. (Check out our website for a few featured portals.)

The West Virginia Data Portal displays community indicators related to population, children and youth, educational attainment, health, and economy. The map above shows two indicators: per capita market income for 2009 (left) and 2012 Health Factors Rank (right).

We'll be previewing our Community Indicators Data Portal next week at the United Way Community Leaders Conference in Nashville.

Organizations like the United Way amass a lot of data, especially community indicator data. A community indicator is a way of measuring the health and well-being of a community. There are no standard indicators; typically, community organizations come together and work cooperatively to determine what needs to be measured and how they can do so.

Indicators can vary widely. They may include such measures as:

• Requests for assistance with basic needs such as rent or utility payments
• Food bank or food stamp usage statistics
• Unemployment statistics
• Home foreclosures
• Infant mortality
• Childhood overweight and obesity
• Chronic diseases

HealthLandscape takes community indicator data (which is usually presented in table or graph form), and deploys it on our HealthLandscape mapping platform. The data comes alive, because:

• It's given context: People understand the data in relationship to where they live
• It's not static: Indicators can be overlaid and compared
• It's visualized: What is difficult to see in a table becomes obvious on a map

How does your community measure its health and well-being? And how would a map make it easier to see?