Patterns of Community‐Based Data in the US State‐Level COVID‐19 Dashboards: Groupings, Inconsistencies and Gaps

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this poster, we report the results of a research study examining the presence of demographic data and other community‐based data and their grouping in visualization on the COVID‐19 dashboards developed by the 50 state governments across the USA and the government of District of Columbia. It was found that while all dashboards included some level of demographic data, there is notable inconsistency in the groupings, and a very limited number of the state‐level dashboards included visualization filtering beyond the basic demographic attributes. Several dashboards included additional data grouping capabilities such as underlying health conditions, residence/business clusters, employment status, or social vulnerability index. Both the inconsistency/gaps in demographic grouping and the fact that only a handful dashboards contained further community‐based information shows the lack of awareness of state government on the importance of incorporating detailed grouping in demographic data as well as other community‐based datasets. Public health dashboards, including those reflecting emergency or crisis situations such as COVID‐19 dashboards, are in serious need to accurately, comprehensively, and inclusively represent and display the data patterns of all members of the community, especially the often overlooked and marginalized communities.