Effective Government Data Displays
This Google Doc, which is open to comments from anyone, catalogs 34 effective charts that state health agencies have used to communicate about data the pandemic.
Resources for Local Health Departments
Hillcrest Advisory is piloting a service to provide at no charge tables and graphs about COVID-19 that are tailored for use by local health departments and updated regularly. These charts are modeled after Datawrapper’s offerings noted in their blog post, “17 responsible live visualizations about the coronavirus,” but provide the data for your locale. The charts can be linked to or embedded into your department’s website, with Hillcrest Advisory providing updates to the charts via data supplied by the health department. The design of the charts may be enriched, and additional chart offerings added, as new data become available or as our public understanding of how best to express information to local constituents about COVID-19 improves.
See an example of these local charts >>
Contact Hillcrest Advisory if you’re interested in learning more >>
Blog Posts
Flattening the Curve and Expanding My Understanding
The concept of “flattening the curve” and the related graph has been shared widely during the spread of the Coronavirus outbreak, and it’s been heartening to see health data visualization so concretely help us understand the need to “squish down” and spread out the impact from COVID-19. Here’s a blog post on how this flattening the curve visualization helped me understand the importance of the public health measures we’re now being asked to take and, more broadly, what ingredients are necessary in visualization to support health education/literacy.
Read the full post on Nightingale, a publication of the International Data Visualization Society >>
Thirteen Things to Visualize About COVID-19 Besides Case Loads
Remember a few weeks ago, when measures such as smoking or obesity rates, cardiovascular disease prevalence, and opioid deaths were essential ways we defined health? Those seem like such distant concepts now that we’re so fixated on COVID-19 and its growing case loads in countries around the world. There’s no doubt that COVID-19 case loads will continue to capture our attention, likely for months (or, dare I say it, years). But that doesn’t mean that we need to focus exclusively on case loads, or number of deaths, related to the coronavirus.
Read the full post on Nightingale >>
Blog Posts by Others Related to Data Viz and COVID-19:
Hillcrest Advisory 