HealthLandscape and UDS Mapper took first place in the Web-Based GIS Application catergory at the Esri International User Conference's User Software Applications Fair. The full display included HealthLandscape Version 3, the UDS Mapper, and the Med School Mapper. Esri is the world leader in Geographic Information Systems. The Conference took place July 11-15 in San Diego and drew more than 15,000 GIS users. Application Fair prizes were awarded based on attendee voting.

On January 24th, James Schwab joined The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati as the new director, president, and chief executive officer.

Schwab, who previously announced his retirement as the Cincinnati market president for U.S. Bank, has long been deeply involved with Cincinnati's non-profit community. He is chairman of the board of TriHealth and serves on the board of the Health Improvement Collaborative. Schwab also serves as trustee of The University of Cincinnati Foundation; The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; Hoxworth Blood Center; The Children's Home; The Cincinnati Zoo; the Research and Education Committee of Cincinnati's Children's Research Foundation; and the Southwest Ohio Region Workforce Investment Board. Schwab is also a trustee of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber.

Jim Schwab is a lifelong Cincinnati resident and has held many positions with companies that dot Cincinnati's skyline including Great American Holding Company, Xtec, General Cable Corporation, American Financial Corporation, Corporex and The Baldwin-United Corporation. Schwab graduated from the University of Cincinnati and the University of Michigan Law School.

HealthLandscape welcomes Mr. Schwab to the Health Foundation. We look forward to working together.

Visit OASIS - the Online Analysis and Statistical Information System. OASIS is a project funded by The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati as a way to make the results of research more accessible to its grantees and the general public.

OASIS now has a blog and a Facebook page. You can also follow OASIS on Twitter.

The US Census Bureau just released their Halloween Special Feature. According to their research, in 2009 there were 36 million potential trick-or-treaters, or children between the ages of 5 and 13. These trick-or-treaters had 111.3 million occupied housing units to canvas for the annual haul of candy.

HealthLandscape can help you with your Halloween planning. If your county has a high number of trick-or-treaters, then you'd better have a few extra bowls of candy standing by.

Figure 1. Number of Children Ages 5 to 13, 2009 (Population Estimates)


Speaking of candy, in 2009 Americans had a per capital candy consumption of 24.3 pounds! Where did it all come from? California has the largest number of confectionery establishments, with 193. Pennsylvania is second, with 143, and New York is third, with 120.

Figure 2. Number of Confectionery Manufacturing Establishments (Chocolate and Non-Chocolate), 2008 (County Business Patterns)




Happy Halloween!

Good news for all of the data-minded readers out there! While we're all anxiously awaiting the release of the Census 2010 data, we can begin to enjoy the first wave of releases from the American Community Survey.

The American Community Survey replaced the traditional long-form questionnaire that was sent to a smaller subset of households through Census 2000. The ACS sample includes about 3 million housing and group quarter units in the US, including representation from every county. The survey asks about professions, earnings, health insurance, modes of transportation, and housing costs. Census 2010 gives us the actual count of the population on April 1, 2010, but it's the ACS that describes how that population lives - the portrait of America. The 2009 ACS 1-Year Estimates are now available in the American Fact Finder for geographic areas with populations of 65,000 or more.

The highlights?

Median Household Income - Real median household income in the United States fell between 2008 and 2009 -- decreasing by 2.9 percent from $51,726 to $50,221.

Poverty - Thirty-one states saw increases in both the number and percentage of people in poverty between 2008 and 2009.

Health Insurance - In 2009, the uninsured rate for children under 19 in the United States was 9.0 percent, and the uninsured rate in the states ranged from 18.4 percent in Nevada to 1.5 percent in Massachusetts.

Industry and Occupation - Work hours fell in 46 of the 50 most populous U.S. metro areas between 2008 and 2009.

Home Values - After adjusting for inflation, the median property value decreased in the United States by 5.8 percent between 2008 and 2009.

Rental Housing Costs - Housing cost burdens ranged from a low of 23.2 percent of renting households in the Casper, Wyo., metro area to a high of 62.8 percent of renting households in the College Station-Bryan, Texas, metro area.

Education -- Science and Technology - The estimated number of people in the United States 25 and over with a bachelor's degree or higher was 56.3 million. Of this group, 20.5 million, or 36.4 percent, held at least one science and engineering degree.

Even more exciting than newly updated 1-Year Estimates; for the first time ever we will be able to get regularly-updated county- and place-level information for ALL US COUNTIES AND PLACES, including those with fewer than 20,000 people, through 5-year estimates. The first release of these 5-year estimates is scheduled for December, 2010. This is a big deal to those of us who regularly use data to describe populations and solve problems, as the best data we have right now for those smaller areas are 10 years old. You can imagine what kind of problems this can cause. Think about how much has changed in your own personal life over the last 10 years. 10 years ago, would you have been able to accurately predict where you are today? Population estimates and extrapolation can only take us so far.

In the meantime, there are plenty of other tools and articles to explore. Check out this page from USA Today, which includes an interactive mini-map that displays 2009 ACS data, by state.



You can also follow the official blog of the US Census Bureau, Random Sampling.

Of course, HealthLandscape is continuously uploading data to the newly added 2009 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates section, so be sure to check back regularly for new additions.

Figure 1. Journey to Work: Percent of Population Using Public Transportation

Figure 2. Educational Attainment: Percent of Population with Graduate Degrees

New data available in HealthLandscape!

The U.S. Census Bureau, with support from other Federal agencies, created the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program to provide more current estimates of selected income and poverty statistics than those from the most recent decennial census.

The U.S. Census Bureau's Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program provides annual estimates of income and poverty statistics for all states, counties, and school districts. The main objective of this program is to provide estimates of income and poverty for the administration of federal programs and the allocation of federal funds to local jurisdictions. In addition to these federal programs, there are hundreds of state and local programs that depend on income and poverty estimates for distributing funds and managing programs.

The SAIPE program produces the following state and county estimates:

• total number of people in poverty
• number of children under age 5 in poverty (for states only)
• number of related children ages 5 to 17 in families in poverty
• number of children under age 18 in poverty
• median household income

The estimates are not direct counts from enumerations or administrative records, nor direct estimates from sample surveys. Instead, for states and counties, the US Census Bureau models income and poverty estimates by combining survey data with population estimates and administrative records. For school districts, they use the model-based county estimates and inputs from the decennial census and federal tax information to produce estimates of poverty.

Estimates for 2008 were released in November 2009. These estimates combine data from administrative records, intercensal population estimates, and the decennial census with direct estimates from the American Community Survey to provide consistent and reliable single-year estimates. These model-based single-year estimates are more reflective of current conditions than multi-year survey estimates.

General Caution

Estimates for counties or states in the sorted tables may not be statistically different from estimates for other counties or states in the tables due to uncertainty in the estimates. Please see uncertainty for information associated with model-based estimates, and also general cautions about comparing model-based estimates.

Figure 1. U.S. Small Area Income Poverty Estimate for all ages, 2008


Related sites include:

Census Bureau Resources

• Small Area Health Insurance Estimates program.
• American Community Survey main page.
• Census Bureau income topics.
• Census Bureau poverty topics.
• Census Bureau American Fact Finder Reference Maps.

Other Sources of School District Data and Reference Maps

• National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
• Census 2000 School District Data and Maps.

Maps for a specific city, county, or state can be seen at the HealthLandscape website http://www.healthlandscape.org. Or by email request to support@healthlandscape.org.

What is HealthLandscape?

HealthLandscape is an interactive web atlas that allows health professionals, policy makers, academic researchers and planners to combine, analyze and display information in ways that promote better understanding of health and the forces that affect it. The tool brings together various sources of health, socio-economic and environmental information in a convenient, central location to help answer questions about and improve health and healthcare.

With HealthLandscape, users can upload and geocode large amounts of data quickly and easily. They can then combine their data with publicly available data sets including regional criminal justice, economic, education, healthcare and census data. HealthLandscape can then be used to create maps, view tables, discover community characteristics and share information with health professionals, policy makers, and legislators.

HealthLandscape is available at no cost to registered users. Additional information can be requested by email to info@healthlandscape.org

After the 2009 Christmas Day bomber's attempted strike, media reports were saturated with the phrase, "connecting the dots." Many pieces of information existed within US intelligence agencies on the bomber's connection to and increasing fascination with terrorist ideologies, his time spent in an al Qaeda recruitment camp, and mounting concerns from his father that his behavior would presage violence. Lots of data was out there, but how to contextualize it so meaningful action could be taken to prevent harm was, and still is, the challenge.

As a UC graduate student training with Mark Carrozza, the Health Foundation has lots of data but how to contextualize it or make it meaningful is the challenge. Mark is teaching this scared and slightly intimidated student the in's and out's of GIS. And like most acronyms, "GIS" scares me. But in the book "GIS and Public Health", Ellen Cromley breaks it down. GIS is simply looking at information through a "digital lens".

Mapping geographic distributions is just a fancy way of saying we are telling a story, which is what we do anyway as humans to make things meaningful. You don't have to be a gear-head or tech savant. GIS is about where you live – the markets and marketplaces, the illnesses, or the air quality. GIS is your hemisphere or your street. It's a story, one among many.

Over the next 10 weeks, I will be looking at violence data from the Coalition for a Drug Free Cincinnati and other national, state and local databases for the purpose of applying a public health framework to this data. Instead of looking at violence as isolated events, the application of an epidemiological approach can hopefully generate a more useful approach to developing a program relevant to the promotion of health for an identified population experiencing violence in Hamilton County, Ohio.

In the June 22, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, journalist John Seabrook wrote about how the epidemiological approach to crime within the Cincinnati Police Department ultimately led to a an understanding of Northside's Taliband gang that led to an arrest of 22 of its gang leaders and the effective end to the gang. The New Yorker

Right now, I am just getting started to dig through a mountain of data. And like an archeologist, I've only started to get dirt under my fingernails. What aspect of violence will I chose to examine? Well, I'll have to see what I start to uncover. I hope you, kind reader, will join me on this 20 week journey through the selection of a specific aspect of violence and then an analysis of public health models. The aim is to select one model with strong evidence backing an intervention that could be applied to what I uncover.

In addition, I will be partnering with the Cincinnati Police Department and riding with them through districts – one in particular, as yet to be selected – with hopes of bringing the insights of the field to all this data collection.

Lots of data. Lots of layers of information to get through. But one goal: connecting the dots. Hope you will join me on the journey.

New data available in HealthLandscape!

Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Economic Profile data (released April 2009) are new estimates for 2007. The years 2005-2006 are revised from the previous release of April 2008. Population and per capita estimates were revised back to year 2000.

The Regional Economic Profile (Table CA30) provides general economic data that are derived from other, more detailed tables (CA05, CA05N, CA25, CA25N, and CA35). Estimates are organized by both place of residence and place of work. The place of residence profile includes estimates of total personal income, population, and per capita personal income. The place of work profile includes estimates of total earnings, total employment and average earnings per job. For more information, see Regional Economic Information System.

1. Total earnings less contributions for government social insurance adjusted to place of residence.

2. Consists largely of supplemental security income payments, family assistance, general assistance payments, food stamp payments, and other assistance payments, including emergency assistance.

3. Census Bureau midyear population estimates. Estimates for 2000-2006 reflect county population estimates available as of April 2008.

4. Type of income divided by population yields a per capita measure for that type of income.

5. Excludes limited partners.

6. All state and local area dollar estimates are in current dollars (not adjusted for inflation).

Figure 1. Number of Non-Farm Proprietors, 2007

Figure 2. Per Capita Personal Income, 2007