The New Chicago Health Atlas
The Department of Public Health and Smart Chicago Collaborative today launched the reimagined Chicago Health Atlas, an updated website that displays over 160 health and health-related indicators. The Health Atlas provides residents and stakeholders with instant access to citywide and community level public health data that can be used to promote the health of Chicago’s communities.
“The Chicago Health Atlas makes it possible for all Chicagoans to use community level health data to make informed-decisions about policy recommendations, planning efforts or strategic investments,” Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner, Julie Morita, M.D. said. “The Atlas is about empowering our partners and residents with accurate and timely data so that everyone can learn more about the health and well-being of our communities.”
In addition to vital health information on birth outcomes, mortality rates and hospitalizations, the Atlas provides timely data on a wide array of diverse topics such as behavioral health, injury and violence, education, and housing and transit. The Health Atlas contains first-time community-area estimates of health behaviors (e.g. smoking, cancer screening and dietary behavior) from the Department of Public Health’s annual Healthy Chicago Survey. Users can create maps and graphs to see how health behaviors, neighborhood conditions, and outcomes differ across communities and demographic groups, and how they have changed over time.
“By making public health data more accessible, the City has shown its commitment to increasing health equity across all communities,” said Kyla Williams, Interim Executive Director of the Smart Chicago Collaborative. “And the Health Atlas will be a ‘living’ website, with new indicators and visualizations as we add data sources.”
The Health Atlas also maps over 20,000 community resources through data provided by MAPSCorps, a non-profit organization that delivers hands-on STEM training for youth through neighborhood asset mapping. This partnerships marks the first time MAPSCorps data will be used by the City of Chicago for distribution to the public.
“Information is power and MAPSCorps is committed to providing communities across Chicago with quality information about community asssets to support residents’ well-being,” said MAPSCorps Executive Director Andres Alvear.
The Chicago Health Atlas builds on Mayor Emanuel’s commitment to open data through strategic partnerships with the civic tech community and startups. Building on the success of Chicago’s Open Data Portal, the Chicago Health Atlas encourages developers to connect to the Atlas through the API and build new and innovative dashboards and content-specific apps. The Atlas will be unveiled to the community and partners at Blue 1647, an entrepreneurship and technology innovation center in the Pilsen community, in early November.
The Chicago Health Atlas website, designed by Dom & Tom, is a public-private partnership made possible with funding from the Otho S.A. Sprague Memorial Institute.
Explore the Chicago Health Atlas at http://www.chicagohealthatlas.org/