Using Facts Matter to Map Mental Health Status in Greater Cincinnati

In recognition of National Prevention Week, we are drawing attention to health issues related to substance abuse and prevention. National Prevention Week is an annual health observance designed to increase public awareness of, and action around, substance abuse and mental health issues. This year's theme is: "Your voice. Your choice. Make a difference."

Facts Matter is a data portal created by HealthLandscape and funded by the United Way of Greater Cincinnati, The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, and the Haile/U.S. Bank Foundation to support the region's collective impact efforts. Multiple organizations contribute indicator data, which can be displayed at the county, tract, or neighborhood level.

The map below shows the region's mental health status. Data comes from the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati/Greater Cincinnati Community Health Status Survey and reflects the quality of life or function as influenced by mental conditions.

Facts Matter map view. Darker shading represents better mental health status.

Mapped data can also be shown in a chart or graph:

Facts Matter chart view.

Facts Matter graph view.

Is your community following the community impact model to promote change and well-being? What tools are you using to collect and share local data? Post a comment below to join the conversation.

HealthLandscape data portals like Facts Matter are deployed nationwide and internationally. They can display any kind of population data: community health needs assessment data, community benefits data, hospital quality and population data, educational readiness data, and more. If you would like to learn how your organization can get a data portal up and running in your community, please contact us at 513.458.6722 or send an email to info@healthlandscape.org. You can also sign up for a "Community Indicator Data Portal" webinar at www.HealthLandscape.org.

Use Case: Comparing High School Graduation Rates with Third-Grade Reading Proficiency in Ohio and Kentucky

The Facts Matter data portal is an online tool for data sharing in the Greater Cincinnati region. Community representatives and local leaders (such as the United Way of Greater Cincinnati) have determined what indicators best measure the well-being of the region. They use Facts Matter to display these shared measures and community-level outcomes.

Improving high school graduation rates is one of the region's community impact goals. The screen shots below show several ways Facts Matter visualizes graduation rates and similar indicator data.

High-Low Comparisons of High School Graduation Rates and Third-Grade Reading Proficiency in Kentucky

Above is a comparison of high school graduation rates in Kentucky and third-grade reading proficiency scores (county level). Blue indicates high graduation rates and high third-grade reading proficiency scores; red indicates high graduation rates and low third-grade reading proficiency scores; light blue indicates low graduation rates and high third-grade reading proficiency scores; yellow indicates low graduation rates and low third-grade reading proficiency scores.

 

Side-by-Side Comparisons of High School Graduation Rates and Third-Grade Reading Proficiency in Ohio

Above is a comparison of third-grade reading proficiency scores (left) and high-school graduation rates in Ohio (district-level).

 

Ohio Third-Grade Reading Proficiency Scores by Building

Above is a building-level view of third-grade reading proficiency scores in Ohio. Darkest circles represent buildings with highest levels of reading proficiency.

 

Ohio Third-Grade Reading Proficiency Scores by District

Above is a district-level view of third-grade reading proficiency scores in Ohio. Darkest shading represent districts with highest levels of reading proficiency.

 

Kentucky Third-Grade Reading Proficiency Scores (Chart View)

Above are Kentucky third-grade reading proficiency scores (district-level) viewed by levels of proficiency.

 

Interested in learning more about HealthLandscape's Community Data Portal? Our next webinar is Thursday, April 11, at 3 pm (eastern). Click the Register link below to sign up.

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Collective Impact and Backbone Organizations

Many communities and nonprofits now use the collective impact model to effect long-lasting change. If you're not familiar with the term collective impact, it is a relatively new model that encourages individual organizations to combine initiatives to address complex social problems in large-scale, collaborative ways.

One cornerstone of collective impact is the presence of one or more backbone organizations. A backbone organization is one that, as its name implies, provides structural, behind-the-scenes support to collaborating partners.

The Greater Cincinnati Foundation is one of Greater Cincinnati's backbone organizations. Through GCF and other regional backbone organizations, collective impact partners receive infrastructure, strategy, measurement, funding, and other system-level assistance.

Shiloh Turner, Vice President for Community Investment at the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, has been instrumental in bringing Cincinnati's Facts Matter data portal to life. Facts Matter, developed by HealthLandscape, is one tool among many in Greater Cincinnati's collective impact efforts.

Shiloh and coauthors Kathy Merchant, John Kania, and Ellen Martin recently wrote a four-part article, "Understanding the Value of Backbone Organizations in Collective Impact," for the Stanford Social Innovation Review. We've linked to the article below.

Part 1: Making a Commitment to Strengthen Backbone Organizations
Part 2: Key Learning: What Backbone Organizations Do
Part 3: Results of Inquiry: What We Learned
Part 4: What Next? Leading and Learning into the Future

Has your community adopted the community impact model? If so, what backbone organizations exist to support the model?

Facts Matter Community Data Portal Wins First Place at Esri International User Conference

Conference attendees awarded HealthLandscape's Facts Matter community data portal first place in the "Web-Based GIS Application" category at the 2012 Esri International User Conference Software Applications Fair.


A great big thank you to everyone who test drove the Facts Matter Community Data Portal last week at the Esri International User Conference. We appreciate you selecting us as your favorite web-based GIS app during the User Software Applications Fair!

Facts Matter is a custom configuration of our community data portal. It provides the public with data about population demographics, the status of children and youth, education, health, economics, and social relations in the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region.

Visit the Facts Matter Data Portal at http://www.crc.uc.edu/FACTSMATTER/index.htm.

Related Topics:

• HealthLandscape Presents Three Papers at 2012 Esri International User Conference
• Facts Matter Data Portal Wins Award at Datapalooza Health App Expo
• Facts Matter, Cincinnati's Comprehensive Data Portal, Is Launched
 

HealthLandscape Presents Three Papers at 2012 Esri International User Conference

HealthLandscape was well-represented at the Esri International User Conference in San Diego, California, this week.

Jené Grandmont, HealthLandscape's Data Manager, presented "The Relationship Between Obesity and Poverty: Bivariate Spatial Visualization" during the Access to Health Foods and Health Outcomes session. She demonstrated how HealthLandscape's bivariate spatial visualization tool enables users to create maps based on percentile distributions of multiple variables. These maps better illustrate the relationship between variables such as obesity and poverty. Click on the video to see a quick demo of the tool.

Sean Finnegan of the Robert Graham Center, presented "Visualizing the United States Healthcare Workforce." This paper, coauthored by Jené, focused on using HealthLandscape interactive mapping and data visualization tools to display health workforce data from both the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services National Provider Identifier database. HealthLandscape's tools help users gain a better understanding of where physicians and other professionals are serving and where there are differences between the two databases.

Jené also presented the Facts Matter Data Portal, Greater Cincinnati's regional data portal, which was launched June 1. The data portal allows policymakers and community leaders to visualize the community indicators that are most relevant to Greater Cincinnati.

Why do we attend Esri's user conferences? The HealthLandscape app is built on the Esri ArcGIS platform, and it's important for us to stay current in technology and trends. We translate the complex underlying technology into an easy-to-use interface, which makes data visualization accessible to GIS and non-GIS professionals alike.

Congratulations also go out to Jené for being one of the top three female finishers at the conference's 5K run/walk. Jené, an avid runner, also competed in Cincinnati's Flying Pig Marathon in May.

For more information about the bivariate spatial visualization tool, health workforce data, or the Facts Matter data portal, contact us at info@healthlandscape.org.

Coauthors of "The Relationship Between Obesity and Poverty: Bivariate Spatial Visualization": Mark Carrozza, HealthLandscape's Health Informatics Developer, and Carolyn Borton and Stephen Ansari, both of Blue Raster. 

Coauthor of "Visualizing the United States Healthcare Workforce": Sean Finnegan, Robert Graham Center.

Coauthors of "Greater Cincinnati Data Portal": Ed Carl, Mark Carrozza, and Michael Topmiller of HealthLandscape; and Facts Matter data/funding partners Eric Avner of the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation; Eric Rademacher, Institute for Policy Research, University of Cincinnati; Jennifer Chubinski, The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati; and Shiloh Turner, Greater Cincinnati Foundation.

Facts Matter Data Portal Wins Award at Datapalooza Health App Expo

CINCINNATI — Less than a week after its launch by United Way of Greater Cincinnati and community partners, Facts Matter received national recognition by health care technology experts during their annual expo.

Facts Matter provides the public with data about population demographics, the status of children and youth, education, health, economics and social relations in the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region. The portal expands the community’s access to data and informs regional efforts to work together to improve our community. Facts Matter is built on the Community Indicators Data Portal, developed by HealthLandscape, and is the first of these portals to be launched nationwide.

The Community Indicators Data Portal was recognized in the “For Community” category during the 2012 Health Initiatives Forum, better known as “Health Datapalooza,” June 5-6 in Washington, D.C. The event brought together data experts, technology developers and health care system leaders to recognize innovative applications that raise awareness of health and health care systems, and spark community action to improve health.

“We’re very honored to have received this award,” said Mark Carrozza, health informatics developer at HealthLandscape. “At first, we were just excited to be one of the 17 teams chosen to present the data portal on stage out of more than 200 applicants. This award confirms that the Community Indicators Data Portal will be the go-to place for regional data."

The Facts Matter data portal project is supported by the staff of the Community Research Collaborative (CRC), a partnership between United Way of Greater Cincinnati and the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati. The CRC provides support to policymakers, community leaders, and service providers to identify the health, social, and economic issues facing the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region.

“Facts Matter is going to be a great resource for our entire community as we work to achieve our region's Bold Goals in the areas of education, income, and health,” said Terry Grundy, community impact director at United Way. “The information the portal provides will help us leverage our efforts as we work together for collective impact.”

Register for a Facts Matter Training Session

Want to learn more about Facts Matter, Greater Cincinnati's online gateway to income, education, and health data?

Attend a live webinar (all webinars are one hour):

• Introduction to Facts Matter: Provides a detailed walk-through of the application, including information on how to access and use the portal and a description of the data available within.
• Tuesday, July 10, 2:00 pm
• Tuesday, August 14, 2:00 pm
• Tuesday, September 18, 2:00 pm
• Tuesday, October 16, 2:00 pm
• Monday, November 12, 2:00 pm
• Tuesday, December 4, 2:00 pm
• Using Facts Matter for Decision Making: Gives more in-depth training on how to use the portal to make data-driven decisions.
• Thursday, July 12, 2:00 pm
• Thursday, August 16, 2:00 pm
• Thursday, September 20, 2:00 pm
• Thursday, October 18, 2:00 pm
• Thursday, November 15, 2:00 pm
• Thursday, December 6, 2:00 pm

Or watch either of the videos below:

Facts Matter Overview

Using QuickGeocodes with Facts Matter

You can also download a QuickStart guide from the Facts Matter data portal Resources tab.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to access and use this tool. If you have any questions, contact us at info@healthlandscape.org or call 513.458.6674.

Facts Matter, Cincinnati's Comprehensive Data Portal, Is Launched

Mark Carrozza, health informatics developer at HealthLandscape, demonstrates the Facts Matter comprehensive data portal at its June 1 launch. Facts Matter is deployed on the HealthLandscape mapping platform.

On Friday, June 1, the Greater Cincinnati nonprofit community gathered at the United Way of Greater Cincinnati's Fifth Third Convening Center for the launch of Facts Matter, the region's new online gateway to information about income, education, and health.

Facts Matter will be the go-to place for Greater Cincinnati regional data. Prior to its launch, community leaders had to gather income, education, health, and other data from a variety of sources. And much of that data was not region-specific. Facts Matter aims to change that.

Facts Matter:

• Contains local indicators, indicators that the Greater Cincinnati community has agreed are important
• Collects the data into one location and provides quick access to it
• Uses data at a collective level, which increases the opportunity to make collective impact and offers a means for collective measurement
• Makes data more tangible through a variety of visualizations
• Fosters partnerships
• Stays up-to-date, as opposed to state of the community reports which are snapshots in time, published every few years

Why do facts matter? Nonprofits have accountability issues. They must demonstrate to their funders, boards, program participants, and the community-at-large that their programs are necessary, effective, and worthy of continued support. And there is greater emphasis these days on data-driven decision making. "Access to strategic data guides decisions, helps in planning, and helps leaders evaluate success," said Stephanie Byrd, executive director of the United Way of Greater Cincinnati's Success By 6 initiative, who presented ways that Facts Matter can help agencies in program planning and accountability.

Jim Votruba, chair of the United Way of Greater Cincinnati's Research Council and soon-to-be-retired president of Northern Kentucky University, reinforced the importance of this tool. "To make progress, we need to confront the facts about ourselves and then act on them. This is a remarkable new civic resource. It will make our partnership work for community transformation just that much easier."

Facts Matter is a collaborative effort. Funding partners include the United Way of Greater Cincinnati, The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, and The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation. Data partners include Agenda 360, HealthLandscape, Northern Kentucky University, Strive Partnership, University of Cincinnati, and Vision 2015.

The portal currently contains 81 indicators. "All the data that we want in the portal is not in the portal," said Eric Rademacher, Co-Director of the University of Cincinnati Institute for Policy Research and Director of the Community Research Collaborative. "We will be inviting people to become data partners."

Visit Facts Matter at www.crc.uc.edu. Training opportunities are available through webinars and video tutorials. We will post links in a separate blog, for easy reference.