Community Health Map: A geospatial and multivariate data visualization tool for public health datasets

• Published in: Government information quarterly Vol. 29; no. 2; pp. 223 - 234
• Main Authors: Sopan, Awalin, Noh, Angela Song-Ie, Karol, Sohit, Rosenfeld, Paul, Lee, Ginnah, Shneiderman, Ben
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01.04.2012
• Subjects: Access; Community health services; Consumer groups; Consumers; Filters; Geographic Distribution; Geospatial multivariate visualization; Graphic user interface; Graphical user interface; Graphs; Health care; Health Care Services; Health Care Services Policy; Health policy; Healthcare data; Human Services; Indexes (Measures); Information visualization; Journalists; Medical service; Public Health; Self Help Groups; Spatial data; Visualization; USA; Geospatial multivariate visualization; Healthcare data; Information visualization; Graphical user interface
• ISSN: 0740-624X; 1872-9517
• DOI: 10.1016/j.giq.2011.10.002

Trillions of dollars are spent each year on health care. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services keeps track of a variety of health care indicators across the country, resulting in a large geospatially multivariate data set. Current visualization tools for such data sets make it difficult to make multivariate comparisons and show the geographic distribution of the selected variables at the same time. Community Health Map is a web application that enables users to visualize health care data in multivariate space as well as geospatially. It is designed to aid exploration of this huge data repository and deliver deep insights for policy makers, journalists, consumer groups, and academic researchers. Users can visualize the geospatial distribution of a given variable on an interactive map, and compare two or more variables using charts and tables. By employing dynamic query filters, visualizations can be narrowed down to specific ranges and regions. Our presentation to policy makers and pilot usability evaluation suggest that the Community Health Map provides a comprehensible and powerful interface for policy makers to visualize health care quality, public health outcomes, and access to care in an effort to help them to make informed decisions about improving health care. ► Community Health Map facilitates multivariate comparison of community health status indicators. ► The three visualizations: map view, table view and chart view are coordinated with easily learnable interactions. ► The dynamic query filtering allows filtering out "excuse factors” that aren't health indicators.