New Tool Provides Population Health Insights in US Congressional Districts

January 25, 2023 - Researchers from New York University (NYU) Grossman School of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) unveiled the Congressional District Health Dashboard (CDHD), an online data tool that provides health data for all 435 US congressional districts and the District of Columbia.

According to the press release, the tool incorporates 36 critical measures of health and its drivers, such as deaths from breast cancer and cardiovascular disease, diabetes rates, housing affordability, and access to nutritious foods. Until now, much of these data were difficult for the public to access or unavailable at the congressional district level.

Dashboard users can explore data on health, poverty, education, and other factors by congressional district and compare the rates of these metrics among demographic groups within districts. The tool also enables users to view any district's snapshot, which shows all 36 measures compared to the national average.

“The Congressional District Health Dashboard will help fill a critical need for timely, rigorous, and actionable data that can inform evidence-based policymaking,” said Marc Gourevitch, MD, chair of the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health and the initiative’s principal architect, in the press release. “Now, policymakers, advocates, and others can drill down to their specific congressional districts to identify the opportunities and challenges affecting the health and wellbeing of all the people they serve, regardless of income, race, or zip code.”

The dashboard reveals significant differences in health and wellbeing across the districts, many of which are tied to geography, race, or ethnicity. The tool shows that people living in congressional districts in the 11 states that have not expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act are twice as likely to be uninsured than those living in states with expanded Medicaid coverage. The data also highlight that Hispanic residents have the highest rates of uninsurance on average in most congressional districts across the country.

The CDHD further reveals that deaths from cardiovascular disease are lower in suburban districts at 194 deaths per 100,000, compared to urban and rural districts at 215 and 225 deaths per 100,000, respectively, across the US. There is also significant variation in several other health outcomes across districts, including the number of people who report mental distress, which ranges from 9 to 21 percent.

A team of population health experts, geospatial specialists, and epidemiologists will oversee and update the dashboard regularly. The data within the dashboard are taken from federal sources, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US Census Bureau, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), among other datasets. The tool incorporates the 2022 re-drawn district boundaries based on the 2020 census, corresponding to the 118th Congressional session that started in January 2023.

“This dashboard could be a game-changer for health policy in the United States. By using local data, members of Congress and their staff can make more informed decisions about policies affecting people’s healthcare, communities, and workplaces,” said Giridhar Mallya, MD, senior policy officer at RWJF, in the press release. “Our health shouldn’t be determined by our congressional district, but these data clearly show how far we have to go to address persistent inequities across the country. Regardless of who they are or where they live, all people in the United States deserve the opportunity to thrive.”