I’ve mentioned before that I love data visualization and am intrigued by demographic, psychographic and other breakdowns of information that are visualized in an effective manner. The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Population Health Institute, along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have released a new way of visualizing health statistics by County around the United States. You can see the data for Wisconsin here.
The data looks at Health Factors and Health Outcomes as part of its ranking criteria. Ozaukee County ranked #1 on both Factors and Outcomes, while Menominee County was ranked #72 among all counties on both of these criteria. The specific items under each of these criteria are shown in this chart.
I’d be curious to mash this data up with voting patterns by county, registration by party in that county, insurance company market share and insurance coverage percentages.
Thanks for the post – I agree, I enjoy data visualization very much (especially when I get to create them & can bill my time to a customer 🙂
There’s lots of good stuff here. My gut tells me that it has much less to do with insurance companies, or voting records and is more significantly influenced by income level. However, to this end, as I recall Iowa County is one of the poorer counties in the state, and they rank quite high (17). It’s very interesting to look at the geography – and see higher ranking county amidst lower ones or vice versa. I grew up in a county in the bottom quarter, but have lived my adult life in a neighboring county that is in the top quarter.
The one thing I find very disappointing though – mortality/longevity is a huge component of the outcomes 50%. But nowhere do I see the genetic factor. In determining longevity, how old your parents, grandparents & extended relatives lived is a huge indicator of how long you’ll live. I’m quite certain it is a much greater factor than most of the ones listed.