Global Health and the World Health Mapper

Today, half the world’s population cannot access essential health services. Millions of women give birth without help from a skilled attendant; millions of children miss out on vaccinations against killer diseases, and millions suffer and die because they can’t get treatment for HIV, TB, and malaria. In 2019, this is simply unacceptable.

Statement by WHO Director-General on World Health Day 2019

HealthLandscape has developed the World Health Mapper as part of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Center for Global Health Initiatives (CGHI)  The CGHI aims to support AAFP members' professional efforts to be globally engaged, and promote family medicine and population-based, patient-centered, primary health care on a global scale.

The World Health Mapper includes international health measures of Key Health Indicators, Healthcare Spending, Workforce, Child Health, and the distribution of Global Family Medicine.  The Mapper draws data primarily from the World Bank, as well as detailed data on the reach of Global Family Medicine training culled from AAFP data stores.

The World Health Mapper is a powerful tool for visualizing and understanding global health
data, including a variety of country-level health indicators that can be displayed using maps, tables, bar charts, trend graphs, as well as the ability to examine relationships between two indicators with side- by-side comparison maps.



I had a great time introducing the World Health Mapper at the 2019 AAFP Global Health Summit held October 9-12 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Our presentation was well attended and participants offered suggestions on additions to the tool, including not only more statistics, but also substantive information about health and social conditions "on the ground" in each country. Students, residents, and others can use these data when considering international training and residency programs. I appreciate their feedback and we're reviewing their suggestions for inclusion in an update to the World Health Mapper.


This was the first Global Health Summit I had attended, and I was really blown away by the excitement and passion attendees and presenters had for their work.  I saw two days of thought provoking presentations, but what stuck out in my mind was a Friday morning session "Practicing Global Health in Your Own Backyard", presented by Leopoldine Matialeu and Regina Wang from the University of California, San Diego.  They demonstrated how, with a range of immigrants, asylum seekers, or refugees already living in the US, it is possible to design and implement a residency curriculum that addresses patients from different backgrounds and cultures, without the need to traveling to other countries.  This was very exciting and we're brainstorming at HealthLandscape about how we can use HealthLandscape tools to support similar efforts around the U.S.






I admit, it was also very cool that (serendipitously?) the Global Health Summit overlapped somewhat with an international balloon festival being held in Albuquerque that same week.  I didn't get a chance to go over to the festival, but the wind was kind enough to send some of the balloons over our way early one morning.  Beautiful!

Mark Carrozza
Director
HealthLandscape

Impressions from URISA GIS-Pro 2019

Another year, another exciting time at Urban and Regional Information System Association’s (URISA) annual GIS-Pro conference. This time I traded the dry, desert landscape of Palm Springs (last year’s conference) for the overbearing humidity and heat of New Orleans. Not only was I looking forward to exploring a new city, but I attended this year’s GIS-Pro wearing two hats, one as a presenter, and one as chapter leader of one of URISA’s regional chapters. I was there to learn, connect, eat, have fun, and explore. One of the great things about working with HealthLandscape is that I have the opportunity to attend conferences like GIS-Pro, gain professional development, and present on the work that we do. 

Traditionally, the conference is preceded by a full-day array of workshops. This year, I attended one on GIS in program management, where I gained insight into strategic and implementation planning, financial management, and other challenges that program managers face in the geospatial world. At the plenary the next day, I learned about the Earth as Art program, where the University of Louisiana Lafayette is seeking to turn satellite imagery of the earth into high resolution art galleries. The keynote came from the NOAA Office for Coastal Management. They presented on their efforts to map the coast of the United States so that high resolution data can be readily available at the local level Working in a diverse industry like GIS, it’s easy to fall behind in topics that aren’t covered by my role at HealthLandscape. I see opportunities like conference plenaries to stay abreast of what’s being done at other organizations.

In one of the education sessions, the presenters explored various methods for employing GIS in the cloud. They spoke about best practices for creating data for cloud environments and how data and server management are changing. They demonstrated, through the use of Python programming, that cause and effect actions, called triggers, can be applied to databases so that processes can be automated. This was insightful to hear as the next day I would give a talk on improving workflows using programming in GIS. Over the past year, HealthLandscape has sought out ways to make certain tasks more efficient with the use of Python programming. From projects where the output is multiple maps showing the distribution of various health care specialties for each state to automating multi-step geocoding and processing tasks, HealthLandscape has been employing programming to optimize how we manage data and produce static map deliverables.

Over the last year I have been working to restart a once-dormant URISA local chapter. I attended GIS-Pro to represent the Chesapeake chapter to continue that effort. At each GIS-Pro, there is an annual chapter leader’s forum meeting with the URISA board of directors and other chapter representatives. This is an opportunity to bring up concerns, ask questions, and to hear from the board of directors about the changes that affect how chapters are administered. As a leader, I also took this meeting as an opportunity to learn how other chapters are being run and the struggles that they’re facing as they relate to membership retention, budgeting, governance, and education. On the last day of the conference I volunteered for the GIS-Pro 2020 conference planning committee. Since next year’s GIS-Pro will take place in Baltimore, Maryland, it will be an opportunity to connect with local GIS professionals and to show off the reinvigorated Chesapeake Chapter.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Dave Grolling

GIS Strategist

HealthLandscape

National Primary Care Week (NPCW) 2019 will be held October 7 – 11

This week marks the 20th year for National Primary Care Week, a week led by medical students with an interest in specializing in primary care. The week focuses on ensuring we have new health care providers interested in practicing primary care and addressing issues that many primary care providers encounter, including addressing health disparities.

HealthLandscape builds tools that may be helpful as you embark on National Primary Care Week, providing data to better understand healthcare workforce shortages and maldistribution as well as socioeconomic, demographic, and population health data. As you celebrate National Primary Care Week, visit these tools:

October 7: Building the Primary Care Workforce
Use the HealthLandscape Workforce Explorer (https://www.healthlandscape.org/workforceexplorer/) to look at data related to where providers of primary care practice across the U.S.and compare it to the population. What areas have high population to provider ratios? Is one primary care specialty carrying more of the primary care burden than others?

October 9: Your Primary Care: Getting into Residency
Use the HealthLandscape Residency Footprinter (https://www.healthlandscape.org/residency-footprint/) to look at the areas that are served by graduates of Family Medicine residency programs. Explore what areas would be underserved areas if we withdrew the graduates from a residency program to see the social impact Family Medicine has across the country.

October 10: Health Disparities Day of Action 

Almost all of the tools in the HealthLandscape stable have information on social determinants of health. Visit https://www.healthlandscape.org for a list of tools or visit these in particular:

• The Population Health Mapper (https://www.healthlandscape.org/populationhealth/) has county level data on social determinants of health that users can add to see what areas are cold spots for health- those areas where many SDOH factors stack up are the ones that are likely to have high health care needs.
  
• Similarly, the 500 Cities Mapper (https://www.healthlandscape.org/500cities/) does the same thing but at a census tract level for the 500 largest cities in the United States.

If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. We’d also like to know how you found HealthLandscape tools useful (or not) as you use them to inform your National Primary Care Week work and beyond.




Jennifer Rankin, PhD
Senior Manager, Research and Product Services, HealthLandscape

HealthLandscape at NACHC CHI (and a busy fall!)

The HealthLandscape team was busy last month in Chicago! We attended the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) Community Health Institute (CHI) alongside health center staff, executives and board members, state and regional Primary Care Associations (PCAs), and Health Center Controlled Networks (HCCNs). It’s the largest gathering of this audience each year and a great opportunity to interact with some of the 1,400 health center organizations that serve the United States. HealthLandscape was exhibiting, presenting, and training attendees on how to use the UDS Mapper.

What is the UDS Mapper? Health centers have, since the 1960s, served the underserved regardless of one’s ability to pay. Health centers funded under the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) Health Center Program are required to report patient, clinical, and operational data each year into the Uniform Data System, or UDS. The UDS Mapper allows health centers and stakeholders to map these data and compare with available resources and population data. Health centers use the UDS Mapper to create service area maps for various grant opportunities, do strategic planning, perform needs assessments, and much more. At CHI, HealthLandscape was offering UDS Mapper demonstrations in the exhibit hall and one-on-one UDS Mapper trainings. We presented The UDS Mapper Identifies Health Center Opportunities to Support the Health Care Safety Net: The Case of Rural Hospital Closures and displayed a poster entitled Exploring Health Center Penetration in Medicare Spending Priority Areas.

Screenshot of UDS Mapper

We love to get out and talk about ways to use health and population data (especially geospatial data) to better understand and serve our communities. It’s a great opportunity to meet the people who use our tools and get feedback on how to make the tools better. To that end, we at HealthLandscape have already started our busy fall - watch for more information on our upcoming appearances:

• Family Medicine Experience (FMX), September 23-27, Philadelphia, PA
• Maryland Association of Community Health Centers (MACHC) Annual Conference, September 30 - October 1, Cambridge, MD
• URISA GIS-PRO, September 28 - October 2, New Orleans, LA
• Esri Health and Human Services Seminars, October 1 and 3, New York, NY and Raleigh, NC
• Nurse-Led Care Conference 2019, October 1-3, Nashville, TN
• AAFP Global Health Summit, October 7-12, Albuquerque, NM
• National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) Financial, Operations Management / IT (FOM/IT) Conference, October 24-25, Chicago, IL
• American Public Health Association (APHA), November 2-6, Philadelphia, PA
• North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG), November 16-20, Toronto, ON
• Florida Association of Community Health Centers UDS Training, November 21-22, Orlando, FL

We’ll be presenting at these conferences on a variety of HealthLandscape tools, our research, and more. We hope to see you this fall!





Jessica McCann
User Engagement Specialist, HealthLandscape

HealthLandscape Joins Esri Partner Network

HealthLandscape has joined the Esri Partner Network as a Silver Tier Partner.  As Silver Partners, HealthLandscape joins a global community of geographic information system (GIS) specialists offering expertise, solutions, and services in ArcGIS and related products.

As a Silver Tier Partner, HealthLandscape receives exclusive communication and collaboration services, in addition to Esri software use and knowledge to better meet our customers’ needs. This benefits HealthLandscape clients in a number of key ways, including:

• Access to the full suite of Esri products for testing and developing new tools and functionality;

• Access to “early” knowledge of technology and product changes; and

• Access to industry leading experts and thought leaders within Esri and partners worldwide.

We are excited to join the Esri Partner Network and use its many benefits to support our customers. This partnership will also allow us to strengthen our offerings and Esri programs like the ArcGIS Living Atlas and ArcGIS Marketplace will allow us to highlight our capabilities and expand into additional markets.

Esri is a developer and marketer of proprietary GIS software, data, and online and professional services. The Esri Partner Network is a global network of partners that share a common vision, interests and goals with Esri; apply geospatial industry best practices; and employ innovative business strategies to deliver market-leading geospatial solutions and services based on Esri technology. Lean more about the Esri Partner Network at https://www.esri.com/en-us/about/esri-partner-network/overview

Mark Carrozza

Director, HealthLandscape

National Immunization Awareness Month

In 1796, the first vaccine was administered to protect the populace against smallpox. Since then, researchers and scientists have developed and tested a multitude of vaccines against diseases such as cholera, yellow fever, tuberculosis, polio, measles, Lyme disease, and hepatitis A. These preventive measures are a way of cutting down the risk of contracting fatal pathogens. Vaccines work by building up your immune system so that if and when you are exposed to pathogens, your body is prepared to fight against it. Being inoculated against a particular illness not only bolsters your protection, but also that of those around you.

Sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and coordinated by the National Public Health Information Coalition, National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM) is held every August to highlight the importance of vaccination. The Public Health Foundation cites three key points that the NIAM campaign focuses on:

1. vaccines are important in protecting people against disease
2. vaccines are recommended for all stages of one’s life, and
3. having a reliable health care provider who is knowledgeable is integral in making sure people get the vaccines they need.

Throughout the NIAM campaign, each week in August targets a specific theme. The first week focuses on babies and pregnant women, the second on children, pre-teens, and teens, followed by young adults in the third week. The last week during NIAM is dedicated to promoting vaccines among adults.

HealthLandscape, in collaboration with the Health of the Public and Science (HOPS) division of the American Academy of Family Physicians, has created an Immunizations Mapper. This mapping application displays state level immunization information for legislative purposes. It is grouped into three main topics covering vaccine-specific coverage levels for children 19-35 months, adolescents 13-17 years, and influenza/pneumococcal vaccination coverage. Users can select a variety of vaccines to display the coverage rate for DTaP, MMR, Varicella, Tdap, HPV, and influenza and streptococcus pneumoniae. When users click on the data table feature of the application, they can view data on which states have the authority to operate an Immunization Information System (IIS) for adults or children, reporting requirements, whether children and adults can opt out via a consent form, and the state registry website.

Percent coverage among children 19-35 months for the vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella (source: CDC)

HealthLandscape users can also find vaccine related measures in Community HealthView, our extensive data library for state and county level data on topics ranging from demographics to veterans to chronic health to economics. Users will find several indicators related to vaccine coverage including percentage of the population 65 and over with an influenza vaccine in the past year and percentage of the population 65 and over that ever had a pneumococcal vaccine. Both of these indicators are from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) for data years 2006-2012.

Percent adults 65 and over with an influenza vaccine (source: BRFSS)

Legislators, health professionals, and public health experts can use tools like HealthLandscape’s Immunizations Mapper and Community HealthView during the NIAM campaign to pinpoint areas to target resources and to collect information on current legislation as they relate to vaccine coverage.

Dave Grolling

GIS Strategist, HealthLandscape

Celebrating Health Center Week

National Health Center Week (NHCW) is an annual time to celebrate the nation’s health centers which serve as health homes to over 28 million otherwise underserved patients. Health centers are incubi for innovations to serve the whole patient including their social determinants of health (SDOH). For NHCW, August 4-10, 2019, every day has a different theme within which we can honor the health centers that are rooted in the communities they serve - within and outside of the clinic walls.

Today, Sunday, August 4, the theme is Social Determinants. SDOH have been shown to have a larger impact on personal health than medical care, genetics and health behaviors. Growing awareness of the impact of SDOH has led to calls by federal agencies to include SDOH in health care decision-making and payment as well as patient risk stratification. The National Academy of Medicine included 17 social and behavioral domains of SDOH data (“neighborhood” data is the only domain that is not individual-level data) to capture in EHRs as a part of Meaningful Use, and many organizations have developed tools to help organizations capture those data. Other organizations, like HealthLandscape, use data from secondary sources which tell us a lot about the neighborhood where a person lives, therefore already filling in much of the picture without needing to capture data on all 16 individual-level domains, or adding to the picture in other cases.

But the question remains - what do we do with these data once they are captured and added to the EHR? Who needs those data? What will they look like? How do we integrate them with clinical data? Most solutions are still focused on the individual patient - connecting patients to resources and providing referrals - but what about the population health targets like payment reformation and patient-risk stratification? HealthLandscape is working on these and other questions related to the addition of these data to EHRs. In our Community Vital Signs suite of tools we have many different visualizations of patient data - both clinical and community data - so we can test and improve the inclusion of SDOH in health care to improve population health. Visit our Population Health Profiler to see one example of these tools.

In the meantime, our other mapping tools like the UDS Mapper and others allow you to quickly visualize (without full EHR integration) how SDOH affect communities. Within the UDS Mapper we provide ZIP Code-level SDOH. Users can explore their communities and see where there are pockets of need, identify areas for growth, and plan to meet community needs. Health centers have always been rooted in communities, and the UDS Mapper is the tool that helps visualize need in those communities.

If you have questions, or would like assistance with any of the HealthLandscape tools mentioned above, please contact us anytime. 

Jennifer Rankin

Senior Manager, Research and Product Services

HealthLandscape

National HIV Testing Day

HIV testing day is June 27. On this day, organizations throughout the U.S. sponsor a wide variety of events, including free testing and education.  As HRSA’s Health Center Program funds 10,000 health center sites, serving over 24 million people, it is uniquely situated to address the HIV crisis. In fact, the health center program focuses on care for underserved and vulnerable populations, the same populations disproportionately affected by HIV.  One way the health center program is leveraging this is by participating in the Department of Human Services’ “Ending the Epidemic: A Plan for America.” This new 10-year initiative aims to virtually eliminate new HIV infections in the U.S. by focusing on early diagnosis, rapid treatment, proven prevention, and rapid outbreak response among areas most at risk. When the initiative begins next year, health centers in target areas will expand outreach as well as both routine and risk-based HIV testing opportunities.

As a geographer, I was curious about the communities targeted by the Ending the Epidemic initiative and the health centers located within them. I wanted to visualize the service areas of these health centers in relation to other community resources and overlay some population health data. To get started, I created a series of maps of Franklin County, Ohio, one of the initiative’s 48 target counties, using the UDS Mapper.

The UDS Mapper is ideal for this type of project as it is an online mapping and decision-support tool driven primarily by patient location data within the Uniform Data System (UDS). It allows easy visualization of health center service areas, along with patient data, population health data, and health related facilities. Within the UDS Mapper, I started by navigating to Franklin County, Ohio, then activating the By Patient Origin mode of the Explore Service Area tool.

UDS Mapper with Explore Service Area tool set to By Patient Origin mode

I could see right away that there are five organizations located within Franklin County. I wanted to see how large their service areas are and where they overlap.

I clicked on each organization which added its core, in this case 75%, patient origin service area to the map. I could see that these organizations serve many Franklin County ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs), especially those in and adjacent to the city of Columbus.

Patient origin service areas

I turned on service access points and saw that they are also mostly concentrated in central Franklin County.

Patient origin service areas with health center service access points

For demonstration purposes, I chose Columbus Neighborhood Health Center (CNHC) to examine further. I de-selected the other health centers so my map only showed CNHC’s patient origin service area, then I opened the Data Table. Studies show that people with health insurance have greater access to HIV testing, and that early knowledge of one’s HIV status reduces HIV-related morbidity and mortality and reduces the risk of transmission (KFF, 2019). To assess population insurance status and access to care for CNHC’s service area, I added uninsurance and no usual source of care data to my table. I could see at a glance that in the ZCTAs that comprise CNHC’s core service area, 9% of the population are uninsured and 19% have no usual source of care.

Data table and summary row

I then used the Population Indicators tool to see which ZCTAs are at or above these service area benchmarks.

ZCTAs with relatively high rates of uninsurance and no usual source of care

Twelve ZCTAs within the health center’s service area have uninsured rates above 9% and more than 19% of the population without a usual source of care. These ZCTAs might be ideal areas in which to focus the initiative’s early outreach efforts.

I also wanted to see what other health resources are nearby. There are four opioid treatment programs which could serve as ideal partners throughout the initiative. This is important as intravenous drug use is a major risk factor for HIV transmission, and drug use in persons with HIV could exacerbate the progression of the virus (NIDA, 2018). Additionally, there are several hospitals and public housing facilities within CNHC’s service area which could serve as potential HIV care collaborators.

Health centers, hospitals and public housing sites added to map

Using the UDS Mapper, I was able to quickly and effectively visualize population health and resource data for a health center located within an Ending the Epidemic target county. If you’re interested in trying the UDS Mapper, go to www.udsmapper.org, and don’t miss the Tutorials page for details on each of the tools I used and more. And finally, take advantage of National HIV Testing Day – attend a HRSA webinar, read up on the CDC website, get tested, or just spread the word using the #DoingItMyWay hashtag on social.

Jessica McCann

User Engagement Specialist, HealthLandscape

References

KFF. June 25, 2019. HIV Testing in the United States. 

NIDA. February 27, 2018. Common Comorbidities with Substance Use Disorders. 

HealthLandscape and Men’s Health Week

Since 1994, the week leading up to Father’s Day has been officially recognized as Men’s Health Week. This advocacy campaign, hosted by Men's Health Network, promotes men’s health improvement measures during the entire month of June. During Men’s Health Week and throughout the month, men in the United States are encouraged to schedule appointments with their primary care physician (PCP), get more exercise, get screened for prostate health, eat healthy foods, and consider prevention as a way of life.

Outreach conducted by local and national groups focuses on disseminating statistics to bolster awareness related to men’s health. For example, according to Men’s Health Month, women are 100% more likely than men to seek out an annual visit to their PCP. Data from Health.gov show that men live shorter lives, die at higher rates from the top 10 causes of death in the U.S., and are less likely to have health insurance. According to the Men’s Health Network, men are much more likely than women to die by homicide with some variation by race (1 in 30 for black males versus 1 in 132 for black females; 1 in 179 for white males versus 1 in 495 for white females). Equally alarming is the risk for suicide among men. In 2015, the CDC reported that men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women and that the rate of suicide among men 65 and over is 31.5% compared to 5% for women.

In honor of Men’s Health Week, HealthLandscape has added some exciting new county-level data related to men’s health to the Community HealthView data library. From the National Cancer Institute, we’ve added three datasets describing annual prostate cancer incidence, average prostate cancer cases per year, and prostate cancer incidence five-year trends from 2010 to 2014. From the U.S. Census American Community Survey, users can turn on a layer showing the percent of the population that are male for 2011-2015. Lastly, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Diabetes Surveillance System, we’ve added measures on diabetes and obesity prevalence among men, as well as the percentage of physical inactivity among men. All three of these measures are from 2015, the most recent year for which data are available.

During Men’s Health Week and beyond, advocacy groups like the Men’s Health Network and local and state health departments can use tools like HealthLandscape’s Community HealthView to explore data on men’s health, identify geographic variation or overlap, and/or target resources to improve men’s health.

Dave Grolling

GIS Strategist, HealthLandscape

Family Health and Fitness Day and Park Exploration

Family Health and Fitness Day, created by the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), is celebrated annually on the second Saturday of June. Intended to show how important parks and recreation are to keeping their communities active and healthy, people are encouraged to visit their local parks to explore the recreational options available in their backyards. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, only one in three children are physically active every day and only one in three adults receive the recommended amount of physical activity each week. Parks can serve as local outlets for individual and community activities.

NRPA’s vision is that everyone has easy access to park and recreation opportunities in sustainable communities. To that end, they’ve partnered with the Trust for Public Land (TPL) in a nationwide movement called The 10-Minute Walk Campaign - ensuring that every person has a great park within a 10-minute walk. 

By visiting their site, www.tpl.org/10minutewalk, you can learn more about park access in your community. Seattle, for example, has a ParkScore ranking of 11. The TPL ParkScore rating is based on the following measures; access - the portion of residents within a 10-minute walk to a park, acreage - the median park size and percent of area dedicated to parks, community investment - park spending per resident, and available amenities - features like basketball hoops, playgrounds, and dog parks. 

In the interest of exploring issues of equity in access to parks and recreation, TPL takes their analysis even further by delving into park access by age, income, and race/ethnicity. All of these data points are available at the aggregate level, by city, and for each individual park.

Further, they use the data collected to make recommendations about where new parks might be best located, based on how many additional residents could be covered by the 10-minute walk radius, highlighting areas highest in need of funding and attention.

Clicking on an individual park polygon on the map will give you information about the service area within a 10-minute walk as well as a detailed report on the population being served by that location.

Want to quickly find the parks in your neighborhood? Check out the ParkServe webmap, created using TPL’s database of collected and user-added park locations, to find public parks near you. Click on any park location to find information about the name, owner, and address, where available. 

Jene Grandmont

Senior Manager, Application Development and Data Services, HealthLandscape

Data Lovers Unite!

One thing the team at HealthLandscape believes in pretty consistently is the power of data visualization. We do it daily by building mapping and graphing tools, we teach it, we research it. We live it, we breathe it. That’s why it’s always great to go out to conferences and interact with our fellow data-philes (as you may have read earlier this week in our ACS Users Conference blog).

I try to live by the maxim don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good, particularly when it comes to health data. Health data are robust and fragile. They are comprehensive and limited. They are universal and unique. Since my role at HealthLandscape is primarily to teach people how to use our mapping tools, I try to gauge from an audience how much they care about the nuances and limitations of the datasets we use. Usually I get blank stares; after all, it’s not as fun listening to a list of datasets as it is to see a dynamic mapping tool in action and witness the power of those datasets.

This week, I represented the UDS Mapper at two conferences - the Northwest Regional Primary Care Association Spring Summit in Anchorage, Alaska, and the 2019 National Health Care for the Homeless Conference & Policy Symposium in Washington, DC. I had the opportunity to present in Anchorage and interact with attendees as an exhibitor in Washington. Aside from trying to sort out “when” I am after spanning so many time zones, I was surprised by how many people had deep questions about the data. Many people confessed to being closet data-philes and told me they want more. Their thirst for knowledge pushed me to really think about how these data could be used to answer their unique questions. They seemed to understand the data are not perfect and never will be, but are still useful and can help them continue to do the good work they are already engaged in.

Let the HealthLandscape team know about your data questions. Give us suggestions for new datasets we can add to our tools. Confess to us you are a data-phile. This is an inclusive, data-loving community and all are welcome!

P.S. I met one huge fan of the UDS Mapper this week, and I want to assure you all that if the future of public health data is up to her, we are in good hands.

2019 American Community Survey (ACS) Data Users Conference

The ACS Data Users Group is a partnership between the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the Population Reference Bureau, to promote the effective use and dissemination of ACS data, as well as educate users on data issues and best practices.

The annual ACS Data Users Conference, held May 14 and 15 this year, was a great opportunity to learn how others use ACS data, how the data can be used in concert with other federal and non-federal data sources, and how to keep up with the great data exploration and visualization tools people use (and develop) to get the maximum utility from this detailed demographic and economic data resource.

For me it was great to be introduced (actually, reintroduced) to the IPUMS data library at https://www.ipums.org/. I hadn’t visited their collection for the better part of five or more years, and they have really expanded their offerings. By focusing on data curation and dissemination, and NOT analysis and visualization, they have been able to create wide ranging and still detailed collections of census (lower case c) and administrative survey records. It’s very much worth a visit to their site if you’ve never been (or like me, have been away too long).

Our Contribution at the 2019 ACS Data Users Conference

For my part, I was able to give two well-received presentations, including one that I delivered with Annu Jetty of the Robert Graham Center.

Zhang et al., Am J Epidemiol. 2014;179: 1025–1033 

Both papers focused on our use of an innovative modeling technique developed by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to create small (sub-county) area estimates for specific health behaviors and health outcomes. These estimates are derived from sub-county ACS population measures (diagram shown above). In the first presentation, we showed how the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the UDS Mapper enable you to do cold spot analysis to find high-need areas. My second presentation showed how our Population Health Profiler can help health care providers learn more about the health of the community (“Community Vital Signs”) that matches their actual patient-derived service area. 

Try the tools mentioned above, find support resources, or contact us today for more information.

Mark Carrozza

Director, HealthLandscape

National Mental Health Month and the Mental Health Explorer

The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” While we have shifted our societal views on what we define as “healthy” and have molded programs to meet the needs of individuals, mental health stigma remains. Meanwhile, several figures in popular culture and other platforms have begun a crusade to de-stigmatize mental health issues. For example, President Obama championed and signed the 21st Century Cures Act in 2016 which took steps to ensure insurance companies treat mental health and substance use disorders more equitably. Mental Health America (MHA) has declared May National Mental Health Month. Additionally, many leaders around the world are encouraging safe spaces to discuss issues that millions of people struggle with daily.  

Background

Research confirms extensive mental health stigma and unmet need. Multiple studies from RAND state that mental health stigma is rampant in places like correctional facilities, professional work environments, and in the military. According to the CDC, 50% of Americans are diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder, and the third most common cause for hospitalization is mental illness, especially in the 18-44 age group. Mental Health America (MHA) fact sheets state 1 in 5, or in other words 9 million, American adults reported not having their mental health needs met. MHA reports that, compared to states with a large mental health provider workforce, “states with the lowest workforce [have] almost 4 times the number individuals to only 1 mental health provider.” In 2018, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) published a report projecting supply and demand for behavioral health occupations in 2030. Utilizing 2016 baseline data, the findings revealed behavioral health workforce variations by state and projected an overall shortage across 37 states, reaffirming the need for these services. As we become more cognizant about mental health issues and workforce deficits, policy makers must be careful to match limited resources and appropriate mental health supports to existing needs.  To assist policy makers, practitioners, and communities in these efforts, the team at HealthLandscape developed a tool which provides data illustrating mental health services and need across the nation.  

In May 2019, in conjunction with National Mental Health Month, HealthLandscape launched the Mental Health Explorer. The Mental Health Explorer (shown above) is a free, online tool based primarily on data available from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s County Health Rankings. The County Health Ranking model uses over 30 data measures which leaders can use to advocate for health policy and program improvements in their communities.  The Mental Health Explorer features the Mental Health Mapper (shown below), which consolidates relevant County Health Rankings data, other mortality data, and workforce data in one tool for users to view their specific county level data pertaining to mental health and wellness.

Three additional capabilities are also available through the Mental Health Explorer: Mapping the mental health workforce, mapping community health data, and uploading other data sets for geocoding or analysis. The Mental Health Workforce Mapper (shown below) allows the user to view point and rate data on the mental health workforce. 

Community HealthView (shown below) is an extensive library of social, behavioral, and health measures. Finally, users can upload data to add to the map via the Map My Data feature.

Please refer to the Mental Health Explorer Quick Start Guide as you get started. The guide will help navigate the Mapper and its various tools, and help you examine mental health need in your community. If you have questions, contact us anytime.

Karin Natalie Pivaral for HealthLandscape

Dartmouth College Intern at the Robert Graham Center

Karin Pivaral is an MPH candidate at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Dartmouth College. As an intern with the Robert Graham Center, Karin conducted research in Primary Care Spend in the U.S. Karin’s Public Health research interests also include global health and health policy finance.