Research Tools: The New “City Health Dashboard” Provides Access to Key Neighborhood-Level Health Data For the 500 Largest U.S. Cities
From the Department of Population Health at New York University (NYU) Langone Health:
The City Health Dashboard—an online resource with community-level health, social, and economic data for the nation’s 500 largest cities—was launched today by the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and in partnership with NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, the National Resource Network, the International City/County Management Association, and the National League of Cities.
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The dashboard reports on 36 key measures of health, such as obesity and opioid overdose deaths, as well as the conditions that influence health such as housing affordability, third grade reading proficiency, and income inequality.
It represents a first-of-its-kind effort to provide city- and neighborhood-level data from multiple national sources—creating a one-stop online resource to help city leaders and residents pinpoint and take action on gaps in health and opportunity. The City Health Dashboard gives users the ability to view many of its measures according to race and gender.
The City Health Dashboard data offer a revealing look at how health outcomes and opportunities for health vary widely depending on where you live. For example, City Health Dashboard researchers found that chronic absenteeism—missing 15 days or more of the school year—is higher for the 500 cities included in the dashboard than for the United States as a whole. The dashboard’s data also show that students of color have a higher rate of chronic absenteeism overall. Black and Hispanic students are 29 percent and 16 percent, respectively, more likely to be chronically absent from school than their white peers living in the same city. Regionally, the West has the lowest rate of absences, while the Northeast has the highest rate. This is a critical national problem that puts millions of children at risk for falling behind academically and dropping out of school, which can lead to serious long-term health, employment, and financial consequences.
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Overseen by a team of population health and urban policy experts, epidemiologists, and geographic information system specialists, the City Health Dashboard website displays measures and drivers of health through interactive maps, tables, and charts.
The nation’s 500 largest cities—those with populations of about 66,000 or above—can use the site to target their efforts to improve the wellbeing of residents by comparing outcomes with peer cities, and across their own neighborhoods to guide local solutions.
The dashboard also compiles best practices and resources for driving change across communities. Data presented on the dashboard are drawn from federal, state, and other datasets that adhere to rigorous standards of data collection and analysis, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The City Health Dashboard was piloted in 2017 in four cities—Flint, Michigan; Kansas City, Kansas; Providence, Rhode Island; and Waco, Texas.
Read the Complete Launch Announcement
Includes more findings.
See Also: Multiple Organizations Launch Pilot Version of “City Health Dashboard” (U.S. City-Level Health Data) (January 18, 2017)
Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Dashboards, Data Files, Management and Leadership, Maps, News, Patrons and Users, Reports

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.