The Weather and Health Data

Knowledge is power. Take the weather for example. If you know the temperature, you know if you should wear a sweater or a sun dress or if you should take your umbrella with you. Pioneers stuck their heads out the window or walked outside to check the weather. Today, we are more likely to check the weather channel.

NOAA can be an inspiration for people interested in improving local health data. NOAA you ask, who is that? NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They provide the bulk of the weather data used in the U.S. NOAA provides high-quality, easy-to-use weather data for free and people use the data to inform the public (think your local weather reporter or www.weather.com).

Health data empower entire communities. Health data are past the stick-your-head-out-the-window phase, but they are not quite to the NOAA stage. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is hoping to change that and become the NOAA of health data. By the end of 2010, HHS is planning to release, free of charge and without any restrictions, a wealth of health data through the Community Health Data Initiative ( www.hhs.gov/open/plan/opengovernmentplan/initiatives/initiative.html).

As part of the Foundation's effort to improve community health data, I was in D.C. two weeks ago for the launch of this initiative. The organizers of the initiative, HHS Chief Information Officer (CIO) Todd Park and White House Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Aneesh Chopra, said they wanted to "free" the data. The hope is that providing quality data will inspire local innovators to use and analyze these data in ways that lead to improved local health.

This project is very exciting for organizations like the Health Foundation that have been working on improving community health data. The Community Health Data Initiative has created a lot of buzz online, including comments by Craig Newark (Craig of Craigslist) in the Huffington Post ( Huffington Post).

Some of the early examples we saw at the launch included:

• innovative data analysis tools by Google and Bing that will go public soon
• Sonoma County's Network of Care for Healthy Communities ( Sonoma Network of Care)
• a GPS device that allows asthmatics to track location and time of each use (Asthmapolis)

The overwhelming crowd favorite was an online card game that allows users to compare their community's health with others ( www.meyouhealth.com/clash/). Trust me: it's worth 5 minutes to check this one out! The event also included several nice plugs of the Health Foundation's own mapping tool, Healthlandscape ( Healthlandscape).

What is keeping you from using health data? What tools or resources do you need to use data to improve health?