Public Health in the Rockies 2026

Background/Purpose: Searching for data to support improving our public health planning has never been easier. Navigating through, summarizing, visualizing and making sense of the data remains difficult. To make your job easier and to promote community engagement with data, CDPHE’s team of mapping experts are promoting the use of our Open Data website. What is Open Data? A free and easily accessible website where you can search for, compare, download data and create your own maps and data visualizations using over 150 updated geographically-enabled datasets directly related to Colorado’s public health, environmental quality, emergency preparedness, socio-demographic, economic, and housing concerns.

Methods/Results: Examining data with a geographic lens allows us to understand variations and patterns among data, and to explore the contributing factors that may be influencing these shifting patterns. The CDPHE Open Data website was developed to support mapping and visualization, data management, analytics, decision support, sharing and collaboration. The website provides access to recently updated health outcome and risk behavior datasets including risk behaviors (e.g. mental distress, obesity, physical activity, smoking), key health equity indicators (e.g. diabetes, low birth weight, opioid poisoning, health professional shortage areas), and established socio-demographic and economic factors (e.g. employment, housing costs, income, educational attainment). In addition, address-level locational data on community level resource providers are also published including health facilities, community behavioral health centers, disability-resource providers, licensed childcare providers, schools, and substance-abuse treatment programs.

Implications: Attendees of this presentation will receive a thorough tour of the CDPHE Open Data website and its tools, enabling them to create their own data visualizations and provide feedback as to how it could be applied in their work. Instructors will also lead the audience through a case study in how the tools provided through the Open Data website can be applied to create community-level data visualizations.