Category: Health

Health, Health Care, Community Health, Public Health, International Health, Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Wilderness Medicine

Map: Respiratory Risk in Detroit

Health, Maps

DETROITography

respiratory-hazard-midb-ems_v2

Air quality is extremely difficult to capture due to changing wind direction (generally moving from SW to NE), temperature change, size of the Detroit-Windsor airshed, and various other factors. Measuring air quality at a neighborhood level is next to impossible without an extensive network of instruments to collect data in a small area.

A handful of data sources can be helpful in examining the issue, but still lack the necessary specificity. This is highlighted in Southwest Detroit where persistent asthma, emergency calls, and respiratory risk are all categorized as low even while there is such a high density of pollution emitting facilities.

Many anecdotal accounts of teachers keeping a drawer full of inhalers and inhalers being sold for cash on the street all indicate that respiratory risk is higher in Southwest Detroit than the data show, but people are likely not utilizing emergency and other health services.

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Map: Park Acres Per Resident in Detroit

Health, Maps

DETROITography

ParkAcresPer1000.png

A while back I saw this analysis completed by the WNYC Data News team on park access and wanted to recreate it for Detroit.

There has been a lot of change with parks over the years from the near closing of 50+ parks during Mayor Bing’s time, to an influx of funding to keep them open, then the widespread adoption of parks by community groups, now the new parks master plan, and $11.7 million being dedicated to 40 smaller neighborhood parks this summer.

The map was created by giving every census tract a half-mile buffer and then calculating how many acres of park space fell within those extended boundaries for each census tract. Those acres were then matched to the number of residents living within each census tract.

Some of Detroit’s more populated areas have much smaller parks. With more people and smaller park spaces that leaves fewer acres…

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Map: Landscape of Children vs. Elderly in Detroit

Data, Health, Maps, Research

DETROITography

children-elderly-det2

I’ve been interested in the impacts of various issues on children in Detroit, from traffic fatalities to areas with the most children. The flip side, focusing on the elderly, is also very important and often overlooked in current development efforts in the city.

The age balance or imbalance across the geography of Detroit results in some interesting areas where children or the elderly make up a majority. Not surprisingly many of the areas with the most children also have fewer elderly residents. The riverfront has a larger elderly population often associated with the senior apartment high rises. Grand River cuts an interesting pattern along the Westside where there are more elderly above the Avenue and more children below.

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Data: 290,439 Michiganders signed up for new health coverage in 2015

Activism, Data, Health

MICHUHCAN

ACA_coverage_2015The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reports that 290,439 Michiganders signed up for health coverage that will start on February 1st.

The next enrollment period runs from February 15th – March 1st.

HHS says that about 6.5 million people have signed up or renewed their health coverage in the marketplace since November 15th.

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Data: Michigan Insurance Types 2013

Data, Health

MICHUHCAN

mi_insurance_2013

Michigan has one of the 20 lowest uninsured rates in the country with only 11% of its population uninsured. The increase in the insured rate was largely due to the expansion of Medicaid, known as Healthy Michigan. The Census Bureau expects further increases in the insured rates across many states as a result of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

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Michigan Health Insurance Mission Statements Text Analysis

Activism, Data, Health

MICHUHCAN

insurance_missions

Word clouds aren’t as often used thing these days, but I think it really helps to illustrate the difference between the officially stated “missions” of insurance companies versus the activities that they engage in, which could often times be defined as contradictory.
Few health insurance companies or plans in Michigan have specific mission statements, the majority have very broad missions. Based on the frequency of terms used across health insurance mission statements, more of these companies should be:

providing Michigan [residents] health care access.”

This simple concept of increasing access to health care has gained great prominence with the passage and acceptance of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, this composite mission statement is often placed secondary to the corporate and monetary interests of these insurance companies. The ACA has placed great emphasis on increasing access to health care while allowing the insurance companies to profit.

In the past, the insurance companies…

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