Staff reports | A robust new data-driven website collaboration offers tools to help people visualize the huge problems that South Carolina faces related its high rates of obesity and diabetes.
It’s the Data for Healthy Insights initiative, a collaboration between the S.C. Association of Community Economic Development, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Mitre Corporation.
- It’s online at: http://www.HealthyInsight.org.
Here’s what the new web presence does in geek speak: “Healthy Insights is an open-source based mapping tool that allows users to visualize, at a very local level, the population disease burden, health shaping factors, and resources in their community. With this information, users can begin a conversation among community leaders to generate and prioritize interventions and investment.”
Translated, that means the site, powered by huge spreadsheets of data on everything from median household income and rates of disease to locations of food deserts and junk food stores, uses maps and a friendly dashboard to help viewers see new connections between data sets, which is expected to lead to policy and programmatic initiatives to push to make the state healthier.
Why is this important? Because focusing on and implementing solutions can save big money. According to the site, “It is estimated that the state spends $1.2 billion on care of patients with conditions related to obesity. If South Carolina would halt the increase in obesity, and simply maintain today’s levels, it would save the state approximately $3 billion by 2018.”
As part of a $300,000 pilot project, the initiative also is offering four $25,000 grants — one for each of the state’s four major regions — to partially fund projects to boost health. If you want to learn more about the grant program, you can attend one of three remaining regional meetings — Sept. 29 in Florence, Oct. 4 in Summerville and Oct. 12 in West Columbia.
- Click here to learn more and register. Each meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. and dinner will be served as part of the conversation.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!