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On January 31, 2021, Cleveland & Cuyahoga Health Data Matters (HDM) will terminate as a website. Going forward, visitors will be redirected to HealthyNeo.org.
1) When HDM was established in 2015, it was the only site available for comprehensive data on health and social determinants of health of the local population, with breakdowns available for disparity groups of interest and that could be examined at the zip code or census tract level. At this point, there are many sites across the country with some data like this.
2) The Healthy Northeast Ohio website (www.healthyneo.org) was launched in December 2019, as a neutral data repository for community health. Going forward, HDM will redirect to Healthy Northeast Ohio. Healthy Northeast Ohio aims to work with HDM data contributors to explore adding data to the site.
3) I am leaving the University at the end of January. While Scott Frank has been a full and equal partner since shortly after HDM was established, he agrees that transitioning to HealthyNeo.org is the best use of available resources.
We provided a single place where definitive and current data from all of the local health departments could be housed. This saved resources that health departments otherwise used to satisfy public requests for data.
An early champion of health data visualization, we were among the very first, through our partnership with LiveStories, to enable people to create maps and interactive charts without having to have or learn to use GIS and mapping software.
Anticipating widespread interest in social determinants of health, we made it possible to see the relationship of these determinants to health outcomes, thanks to the rich poverty data provided by NEOCANDO at the Mandel School.
Anticipating widespread interest in health disparities, we also provided data for subpopulations of interest, such as by race, education or age.
Anticipating widespread interest in racism as a public health crisis, we called attention, through data stories, to the tremendous segregation in our County, and the compounding impact of poor social determinants of health found in segregated neighborhoods.
Trained a generation of students (Scott especially!), government officials, and philanthropic and non-profit organizations to use aggregate data to examine population health, health disparities, and social determinants of health through a place-based lens.
Through the Cleveland Medical Hackathon, Amy trained a generation of health innovators to incorporate public health data consider the impact of their technology public health perspectives, and the value of public health data. She also helped public health organizations see ways to utilize real-time data and apps to streamline operations.
Scott and Matthew Kucmanic, our former graduate assistant, have identified important trends in opioid deaths, suicide, and requests for social services, thanks to data from the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office and United Way 2-1-1.
Amy has raised awareness of the digital divide as a hidden social determinant of health that is an example of systemic racism that is likely to further exacerbate health disparities.
Finally, the desire to create a visceral Health Data Matters experience inspired the creation of the Neighborhood Immersion for Compassion and Empathy(NICE) Virtual Reality Simulation. Scott and Amy are both keen to facilitate sessions, via the internet for the time being, for groups seeking training to better understand racism, health disparities and the social determinants of health.
Better Health Partnership
Cleveland Department of Public Health
Cuyahoga County Board of Health
Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner
First Year Cleveland
NEOCANDO
United Way 2-1-1
PLACES (formerly: 500 Cities, CDC)
City Data
Data.gov
American Community Survey (Census)
Living Atlas of the World (ArcGIS)
Good Luck!
You can find Amy on twitter @amysheon and LinkedIn;
Scott’s contact information remains unchanged.
