Binge Drinking in the U.S.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define binge drinking as having 4 or more drinks in the past 30 days for a woman and 5 or more drinks in the past 30 days for a man. To illustrate the amount of adults in the U.S. who binge drink, the CDC developed a map of the prevalence of binge drinking among adults in the U.S. in 2015. Based on the map, it appears that adults in most parts of the United States engage in heavy drinking. To learn more information about excessive drinking, please visit the CDC’s website, here.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/data-stats.htm

Who doesn’t have health insurance?

There are multiple reasons why some individuals in the US have health insurance and others do not.  Affordability, knowledge of health insurance policies and awareness of need are just some reasons one may or may not have health insurance. To raise public awareness about the social determinants that increase one’s susceptibility to developing heart disease and stroke, in 2014 the CDC released a map of the percentage of adults in the US who are under the age of 65 and are uninsured. This map highlights areas of the country that are severely uninsured compared to areas where almost no one is without health insurance.

To read more about the CDC’s efforts at addressing heart disease and stroke in the US, please visit their website here.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). Percent of Population Under Age 65 without Health Insurance. Division of Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/maps/sd_insurance.htm

Do Socioeconomic Factors Influence Texans’ Decision to Get Vaccinated? – A cartographic Approach

Texas has one of the highest vaccination rates for childhood diseases overall, 97.4%, according to CDC. But the number of children not vaccinated because of their parents’ “personal beliefs”—as opposed to medical reasons—has risen since 2003, when such exemptions were introduced, to more than 44,000 so far in 2017 according to CDC. The 4:3:1:3:3:1:4 series is an overall measure that encompasses many vaccines that are recommended for children. Various demographic factors (sex, gender, race, availability of commercial health insurance) influence the decision to get vaccinated, were looked at.

The county-level data on the socioeconomic factors were obtained from US Census Bureau (American Factfinder). The health insurance data was obtained from Small Area Health Insurance Estimates (SAHIE). The vaccination rates were obtained from Texas Immunization registry through DSHS. The data was cleaned and geocoded to be analyzed in ArcGIS to produce maps as shown in Figure 1. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to analyze the relationship between vaccination rates and independent variable.

The non-vaccination rates are higher around the major cities of Dallas, Austin-San Antonio, Houston and some northwest Texas counties. Population density has a positive correlation with the non-vaccination rate. Other demographic factors have a positive correlation in certain counties as opposed to others.

 

Source: American FactFinder, Texas Immunisation Registry

The limitation on the immunization data is it being an optional registry so it would not be accurate to run statistics off this information to estimate an immunization rate. In future, it is productive to expand this concept to use regression analysis to try to find the odds of the relationship expressed in the maps and to find if there is a significant association.

Preventive Dental Care for Children in GA – A look at the disparities.

Preventive oral health care is essential for one’s overall health. For children, it is important to address oral health needs earlier in life to prevent oral health issues from forming and progressing into adulthood. Below is a map of the percentage of children in Georgia with financial access to preventive dental care. This map comes from an article written by Cao, Gentili, Griffin, Griffin & Serban (2017) titled, “Disparities in Preventive Dental Care Among Children in Georgia.”

The authors of the article state that financial access is, “the percentage of children who either are eligible for public insurance or have the ability to afford dental care through commercial insurance or ability to pay out-of-pocket,” (Cao et al., 2017). Although there are plenty of children who are eligible to receive public funding for preventive dental care in GA, only 27.9% of the 4,123 dentists in GA who offer preventive dental services to children accept public insurance, (Cao et al., 2017).

What are your thoughts? What does financial access to preventive dental care mean to you? Is this an accurate representation of financial access? I invite you to read more of the article on the CDC’s website, here. 

Source: Cao S, Gentili M, Griffin PM, Griffin SO, Serban N. Disparities in Preventive Dental Care Among Children in Georgia. Prev Chronic Dis 2017;14:170176. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd14.170176.

Lung Cancer Mortality Rates- 4 maps

These four maps shown in the slide below show the Lung Cancer mortality rate per 100,000 people based on gender and race. Scroll through the maps to see how each one compares. The information is from CDC records and we transferred the data into our Mappler maps.

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CDC Respiratory Risk Data

We took CDC respiratory risk data from the Centers for Disease Control and mapped respiratory risk across the country at the county level. Red shows the highest risk areas with blue showing the lowest. Want to see how your county rates?  Check out our map below!

Everydayhealth.com Flu Map

EverydayHealth.com posted a flu map of the United States to show flu-risk trends and predictions. You can either click on your state and county or enter your zip code to see how your area rates. The map is color coded with mild risk and predictions colored white, moving to moderate risk with a turquoise color, then leading to severe with pinks and then red as the most dangerous.

“Our methodology takes into account current and historical CDC data, rising and falling interest in flu on social media and in online searches, and local and regional weather information. The flu map predicts flu severity county by county across the United States so you can plan ahead and take precautions to avoid the flu – both at home and in places where you plan to travel” (everydayhealth.com)

Go and check out the map by Everyday Health!

Posted by Eva Gerrits, Intern. Click here to see the site. Contact at gis@vertices.com

CDC’s Travelers’ Health

Going out of the country and not sure the precautions you should take? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a very helpful and easy to use site that tells you all information regarding health and safety. When you visit the site all you have to do is select your destination and then there are optional tabs you can click for more specific information.

Once you have entered your information, just click GO and the site will give you information on vaccines and medicines, how to stay healthy and safe, a healthy travel package list, travel health notices, and information for after your trip. The CDC site is very helpful so go check it out!

Posted by Eva Gerrits, Intern. Click here to see the site. Contact at gis@vertices.com

Info by Location

This site provided by the CDC gives you quick facts about the county you live in. By just entering your zip code or name of county, you can instantly see fast facts on your county’s population, asthma disease, air quality, smoking, and health insurance.

When I visited the site I looked up Middlesex County, which is where I go to school. Some things I learned were that about 15.1% of people living in this county are without health insurance, 7.7% are living below the poverty line, and there are about 169, 694 people living here in Middlesex in my age group of 20-34.

Go and check out facts on your county!

Posted by Eva Gerrits, intern. Click here to see the site. contact at gis@vertices.com

CDC Map

Data Layering

On m3.mappler.net/cdcmap/ you will find information from the CDC showing a layered map of six featured categories; Demographic and Socio-Economic based on census, Demographic and Socio-Economic based on county, Mortality Rates per 100,000 people, Disease Prevalence Rates, Environmental Data, and Borders.

– Demographic and Socio-Economic (data from the census) including:

• proportion of mobile housing
• proportion of institutionalized population
• per capita income
• proportion of single parent housholds
• proportion of housing structures with 10 or more units
• proportion of housing with no vehicle available
• proportion of population that is umemployes
• proportion of population under 18
• proportion of population that speaks English poorly
• proportion of housing with more people than rooms
• proportion of population in poverty
• proportion of population over 65
• proportions of non-white population

* US counties also have the same subcategories.

This map shows the layering of the proportion of people that are unemployed and the proportion of the population that speaks English poorly

– Mortality Rates per 100,000 people

• liver disease mortality rates
• colon cancer mortality rates
• transportation accident mortality rates
• diabetes mellitus mortality rates
• ischaemic heart disease mortality rates
• stroke mortality rates
• lung cancer mortality rates
• alzheimers  disease mortality rates
• cerebrovascular disease mortality rates
• hypertension mortality rates
• heart disease mortality rates
• pancreatic cancer mortality rates
• breast cancer mortality rates
• self harm mortality rates
• flu and pneumonia mortality rates

This map shows the layering of Colon Cancer mortality rates, Breast Cancer mortality rates, and Pancreatic Cancer mortality rates

For further information, more layering, and to see the maps on Disease Prevalence Rates, Environmental Data, and Borders, visit the site !

Posted by Eva Gerrits, Intern. Click here to see the site. Contact at gis@vertices.com