Hacking for public health at the Delhi Editors Lab
With the last hackathon of the season in India, we reflected on public health and the participating teams tried to devise smart prototypes along this theme.
On 21–22 Avril 2017, the Global Editors Network & Hindustan Times organised a hackathon in Delhi. The theme for the event is hack for public health: How can we better monitor the quality of public health and health services? How can journalists find new narratives around public health issues to engage and inform audiences about treatments and prevention? Ten teams of the most innovative newsrooms in Delhi tried to answer these questions during the two-day hackathon.
With a few doses of knowledge…
Syed Nazakat from DataLEADS gave a presentation on the first of the hackathon, to highlight how to make sense of data, a crucial element when reporting on public health issues.
Syed Nazakat first detailed how to find data:
- Census: where data is collected for every individual in the population.
- Administrative data, that is collected as a result of an organisation's daily operations. For example, death and birth registration records.
- Surveys: which are based on responses of only a part of a population.
He went on and explained that journalists have to look at data differently, have to look it from a reporting point of view: bad data is also good data, it is actually the best data because a journalist is going to question the authority behind it.
Next up was Harry Stevens, from the Hindustan Times, who discussed how to use multiple datasets for effective storytelling, taking for example the election dashboard produced by the Hindustan Times. He pointed out to the teams that the team behind the dashboard could not rely on one set of data. The journalists had to dig deeper, investigate thoroughly, and unearth some report from constituencies that contained data which challenged their initial discoveries. Great advice for the hackers.
ICFJ fellow Venkatesh H R followed suit, and highlighted 8 reasons to do public health journalism:
- It matters to people – “People barely follow their doctor’s prescriptions, yet they will bet their health and dollars on whatever miracle cure is being promoted in the media” Julia Belluz, Vox
- It helps policy – “Decision-makers… rely on journalists to tell them what’s new and important in the world of medicine and health” Julia Belluz, Vox
- Accountability – “Health care is a business. It needs to be kept accountable. The fourth estate is not exactly a pillar of functioning democracy; it’s a pillar of public health” Julia Belluz, Vox
- Development – “Good overall public health is a condition of being a develop society. Fix public health, and you will have fixed everything that is holding India back” Vinod K Jose
- It makes money
- Good for your brand – If you are seen as doing good work,your brand gets a boost.
- It feels good – For journalists, public health journalism can bring about tangible impact, unlike other types of journalism.
- It wins awards… Not! Why isn’t health journalism part of ‘the awards’?
Himanshu Khanna from Sparklin was the last peaker to take the floor to share his experience with the teams. He detailed what to be mindful of when designing digital products. He expanded on the importance of tailored content, the danger of assuming too much with ‘The curse of knowledge’ and how this affects how a story is told, and how it will be understood by readers. His last piece of advice to the teams was to make sure they always ‘rethink the obvious’.
… come some great ideas
With brand new examples of impactful reporting on public health issues, the teams from Breakthrough, Data Newsroom, Free Press Kashmir, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, India Today, Jagran, Mint, The Quint, The Times of India, Youth Ki Awaaz started work on their prototypes.
The ten teams brainstormed, refined their concepts and started building their prototypes to address public health.
After 48 hours of intense work, the teams pitched their protoypes to the jury composed of Avinash Celestine from How India Lives, Nikhil Pahwa from MediaNama, Trushar Barot from BBC World Service 2020 Project, Pooja Sehgal from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and GEN’s Sarah Toporoff.
List of prototypes presented:
- Breakthrough — ‘Watch Your Zone’ is an interactive data visualisation showing how districts perform on different public health subjects
- Data Newsroom/Free Press Kashmir– ‘The Invisible Battle’ is a mobile-friendly platform to help depression sufferers and connect them with doctors anonymously
- Hindustan Times –’Radiation Heat Map’ is a a data-driven tool to inform on phone towers and give users info on electromagnetic field exposure range
- Indian Express – ‘Mosh’ is a public health tracking tool that compiles data sets and provides a fresh narrative around an issue
- India Today – ‘Care Today Medicine Easy to find Easy to Access’ is an app to help locate the nearest generic medication stores
- Jagran –’Quit Ash’ is an app to help smokers quit cigarettes
- Mint – ‘Navigating Dengue’ is an app meant to track dengue and the anti-dengue infrastructure in India
- The Quint – ‘Tika Talk’ is a game to create awareness and start a conversation between an urban audience and a low-income population on immunisation
- Times of India – ‘What Are You Smoking?’ is a web app that logs symptoms, with an AQI (Air Quality Index) monitor, measuring the impacts of pollution
- Youth Ki Awaaz – ‘Women’s Dietary Diversity Score’ is a calculator working via SMS and web, to raise awareness on nutrition
And the winner was…
Times of India with their prototype ‘What are you smoking?’!
‘What are you smoking?’ is a progressive web app where the users can log their health symptoms while keeping an eye on an AQI (Air Quality Index) monitor. The AQI monitor is updated in real-time sourcing data for 33 cities from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). Symptoms like cough, headaches and other that are logged become part of a public database in which the user can see how many others in their city share the same symptoms. Users can also calculate how many years pollution is shortening their life expectation, with a quiz taking their lifestyle and the AQI levels of their surroundings.
The Times of India team members Kim Arora, Nirmal Sharma and Rishabh Srivastava said of their win:
“This was our first ever hackathon, for which we prepared quite a bit. We guess that paid off! It was exhausting as we did not get a lot of sleep, but very fulfilling in the end. The most important part was that we were able to get something out in 48hrs, a prototype that we believe will add value to the newsroom. And we had a lot of fun!”
Jury member Nikhil Pahwa from MediaNama said of the Delhi Editors Lab winning prototype:
“Delhi is the most polluted city in the world right now, and pollution across major cities in India is increasing rapidly. The Times of India’s prototype crowdsources health issues like congestion and correlates that with air pollution in the city over a period of time. It takes what is simply a number from an AQI and demonstrates the impact in term of actual health issues that people are facing, that in turns becomes a an impactful story. It also visualises it for people to see how it is impacting them.”
Public’s choice and a special mention went to Data Newsroom and Free Press Kashmir for their prototype ‘The Invisible Battle’.
The winning team from The Times of India will join other winning teams from the countries taking part in the fifth Editors Lab season and compete for the title at the Editors Lab Final in Vienna during the seventh annual GEN Summit, 21–23 June 2017.
The Delhi Editors Lab was presented in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Hacks/Hackers India and the International Center for Journalists with the support of the New Venture Fund for Communications. Special thanks to Hindustan Times for hosting this Editors Lab.
