City Health Dashboard takes data-driven approach to improving health

Business Record

A new data visualization tool launched this week aims to provide community leaders in the nation’s 500 largest cities — including Iowa’s six biggest population centers — with a new resource to identify and address their cities’ most pressing health needs. 

The City Health Dashboard enables users to view their city’s performance in 36 key measures of health such as obesity and primary physician coverage, as well as social determinants of health status like housing affordability, graduation rates and access to healthy foods. The tool also allows users to compare data down to the census tract level to pinpoint areas of the city that have particular health challenges and identify ways to address those needs. 

The dashboard was piloted last year in four U.S. cities — Flint, Mich., Kansas City, Kan., Providence, R.I., and Waco, Texas — and has now been expanded to 500 cities through a $3.4 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It was created by the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Medical Center and the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at NYU, in partnership with the National Resource Network.