Healthy Outlook Blog

Through the program, the US Department of Health and Human Services agreed to provide national health data to the public, free of charge and without any intellectual property constraint. The information covers health care, health and determinants of health performance at the national, state and county levels.

GE is just one of a growing array of technology companies, researchers, health advocates, employers, media, consumer advocates, marketers and providers, who were recruited to help make use of the date to raise awareness of health performance, help motivate civic leaders and citizens to improve performance, and help improvers do the improving.

Developed by Ben Fry, the resulting application (pictured above) was released by the Community Health Data Initiative. It enables users to easily compare indicators of community health across the United States. Just click on the factor of interest, narrow in on the county of choice and explore the data.