UDS Mapper: Another Great Community Health Data Source

Source: http://www.nachc.com

In honor of National Health Center Week, we're highlighting the UDS Mapper, a tool we developed on behalf of the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) and the Robert Graham Center. Although the UDS Mapper is intended specifically for the use of community health centers, it's a great data source for anyone interested in community health.

Community health centers were started in 1965 to provide primary care and preventive health services to persons with little access to healthcare. Although there were only a few centers at the program's inception, today there are more than 1,200 community health centers and look-alikes (sites that provide community health care services but are not federally funded). They provide care to more than 22 million people who are primarily low-income or part of underserved communities such as migrant workers and those who are experiencing homelessness.

Because most community health centers are federally funded, they have stringent data reporting requirements. They are required to submit data to the Uniform Data System (UDS) annually. Data are collected about:

• Patient characteristics (including age, gender, race, ethnicity, income level, third-party insurance source)
• Special population groups (individuals experiencing homelessness, migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their family members)
• Patients receiving prenatal, pregnancy, and postpartum care
• Newborn infants
• Health center staffing
• Clinical indicators
• Services provided
• Utilization rates
• Costs
• Revenues

The UDS Mapper displays UDS data at the ZCTA level, and is free to use. It also has other useful features including:

• Ability to map drive times within a 50-mile radius
• Ability to map service areas
• Incorporation into the HealthLandscape platform, which enables users to access HealthLandscape's Community HealthView data library and QuickThemes and QuickGeocodes tools.

For free UDS Mapper training, sign up via UDSMapper.org.

For free HealthLandscape training, sign up using the links below.

• The Community Data Portal (August 22, 3 pm ET)
• Visualizing Data with HealthLandscape (August 28, 2 pm ET)
• Introduction to HealthLandscape (August 29, 2 pm ET)

Thank you, community health centers, for providing needed services to so many!

Sources: http://www.chcchronicles.org/ and http://bphc.hrsa.gov/healthcenterdatastatistics/#whatisuds, accessed August 5, 2013.

UDS Mapper: New Features and Updates

Map showing Health Center Program Grantee Dominance by ZCTA, 2011, for portions of Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.


UDS Mapper, a HRSA-funded project directed by the Robert Graham Center, helps inform users about the current geographic extent of U.S. federally (Section 330)-funded Health Center Program (HCP) grantees. It is one of many apps HealthLandscape has developed to visualize unique data sets.

Check out these new features and updates:

Individual Health Center Program Grantee Service Areas

In the Explore Service Area box (formerly the Define Service Area box), there are three optional functions:

• By Geography: View patient and demographic data by Zip Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA).
• New! By Patient Origin: Select individual HCP grantees and see their service areas according to patient-reported Zip Codes.
• New! By Distance: Determine the potential service area included within a driving time or distance to a given point.

Map showing ten-minute drive time around Wheeling, West Virginia.

 

New! Population Indicator Sliders

In the Map Elements box, we've added a fourth tab, Population Indicators. Use this new feature to visualize the following population-based data by ZCTA:

• % of population in poverty
• % of population low-income (less than 200% of poverty)
• % of population not employed
• Low birth weight rate
• Age-adjusted mortality rate (per 100,000)
• % of adults ever told have diabetes
• % of population uninsured
• % of adults with no dental visit in past year
• % of adults who have delayed or not sought care due to high cost
• % of adults with no usual source of care

Data sources: American Community Survey (ACS) 2010 5-year and 3-year estimates; CDC Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) 2010; CDC Vital Statistics 2009; CDC Area Resource File 2011

Use the indicator slider to adjust the rate. You will see the ZCTAs where the rate is greater than or equal to the number that you set on the slider.

Enhanced Rollovers

Roll your mouse over a ZCTA and see a list of up to five HCP grantees with the share of total HCP patients each center sees.

Most Current Data

UDS Mapper uses the most current data sets available, including the 2011 UDS data and the 2006-2010 ACS demographic estimates.

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Take advantage of upcoming training opportunities to demonstrate UDS Mapper's new features:

• Webinar: September 19 (Click here to register. Content has been changed to focus on the new features of UDS Mapper.)

Or, if you're planning to attend the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) Community Health Institute (CHI) conference in Orlando:

• One-on-one training sessions: September 9-11 (To sign up, click here.)
• What's New with the UDS Mapper: September 10
• Community-Oriented Primary Care (COPC) training session/learning lab: September 11

Need more info? Click here to contact the UDS Mapper team.