Kathryn Foxhall of Government Health IT reports on a Zip code atlas of population health.
This fall an online database will be launched, providing information on specific locations for chronic conditions such as obesity. The National Minority Quality Forum has created the ZIP Code Analysis Project to collect data on disease activity among both general and minority populations by postal code.
The Forum’s nationwide database is a tremendous resource for researchers, corporations, and health-care organizations that need to understand and pinpoint disparities at the zip-code level in order to target chronic-illness interventions for specific populations.
The project will make the data available nationally, by state, congressional district, state legislative district and other geographic areas. It also can be sorted by age, gender and various minority statuses.
Currently, the Web site illustrates data for Chronic Kidney Diseases, and Diabetes.