Ned English
NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago
Ned English is a Senior Survey Methodoligist at NORC at the University of Chicago, where he has been since 2002. His expertise lies in the interface between GIS (geographic information systems) and survey methodology, and so has been involved in research including address-based sampling (ABS), targeting rare populations, and the implimentation of the USPS delivery-sequence file (DSF) over the past ten years. Ned has a Master's degree in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Bachelor's degree in Geography from McGill University.
161 – Dynamic Interactive Data Visualization and Utilization
Using Leaflet.js to Interactively Map the Opioid Crisis
Ned English
NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago
Peter Herman
NORC at the University of Chicago
Five times as many Americans died from opioid overdose in 2016 than did five years earlier. However, the opioid crisis has not affected every part of the country equally. County public health officials may be unaware of how the severity of the crisis in their community compares regionally and nationally. To address this issue, NORC at the University of Chicago partnered with the USDA to create The Opioid Misuse Community Assessment Tool (opioidmisusetool.norc.org). The tool displays county-level overdose rates across the nation, with overlays of American Community Survey and Bureau of Labor Statistics data to allow users to better understand correlates of overdose burden within their communities, such as high rates of poverty, disability, and injury-prone employment. This presentation focuses on the process of building the tool using the JavaScript library Leaflet.js, and decisions that were made to ensure the visualization had a high and informative impact on its audience. The basics of creating interactive maps for the web will be covered, as well as challenges inherent in interactive geographic visualization.