Finding sources to build your research is often a difficult task. One thing we love about PolicyMap is that it provides a hub of a lot of the indicators that we want to look at, specifically health indicators... PolicyMap has been superb in bringing all the data into one location. Jenn Meier, Research & Evaluation Associate at Episcopal Health Foundation
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Challenge

Good community health requires more than just being able to see a doctor. While access to affordable medical care is vitally important, other factors impact an individual’s overall health including social and economic status, health behaviors, community safety, physical environment, and more. To address the non-medical, root causes of poor health, Episcopal Health Foundation (EHF) needed a better way to measure, visualize and understand indicators of overall health. With a standard visual analytics platform, EHF was responsible for the time-consuming task of gathering, managing, and visualizing vast amounts of data themselves. They wanted a way to have all the data they needed, all in one place.

Solution

EHF partnered with PolicyMap to build a map of Texas that displays information about the health and well-being of Texans based on a wide variety of important data. The publicly-available, custom mapping tool provides EHF staff and community members access to a reliable source of research to inform the Health and Healthcare Policy sectors. Users can choose from nearly 50 data points to view health and wellness information at county and neighborhood levels, such as medical data points, poverty levels, housing information, unemployment numbers, and many other social determinants of health (SDOH). These data points are always curated, cleaned, standardized, and consistently updated by PolicyMap’s experienced data team. EHF’s PolicyMap subscription supports internal research as well, informing their grantmaking strategy and aiding in internal evaluation of investment outcomes and effectiveness. EHF Research & Evaluation Associate Jenn Meier said the team has yet to need data outside PolicyMap’s data warehouse. PolicyMap is excited to continue to support EHF as they put forward real, actionable pathways to deliver advances in health for all Texans.