{"id":5923,"date":"2022-01-18T12:09:36","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T10:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everviz.com\/blog\/?p=5923"},"modified":"2023-09-13T09:04:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T09:04:53","slug":"visualizing-health-data-past-present-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everviz.com\/blog\/visualizing-health-data-past-present-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Visualizing health data: Past, present, future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
This is a guest blog post by Rebeca Pop, founder of Vizlogue<\/a>, a Data Visualization and Storytelling Lab that offers workshops and consulting services. You can find Rebeca on YouTube<\/a>, where she posts data visualization videos. Rebeca has been providing insights and creating data visualizations for almost 10 years. She has worked as a digital analytics leader for top media and analytics companies, and is teaching Data Visualization and Storytelling at the University of Chicago and at Northwestern University. Read more about Rebeca in her bio below.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s start with a few key statistics. Healthcare takes more than 10% of the GDP of most developed countries. In fact, in 2020, 21% of the US GDP was spent on healthcare. That is more than any other US program. Healthcare amounted to 12.8% of the GDP in the UK and 11.3% of the GDP in Norway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s more, according to RBC Capital Markets, \u201capproximately 30% of the world\u2019s data volume is being generated by the healthcare industry. By 2025, the compound annual growth rate of data for healthcare will reach 36%. That\u2019s 6% faster than manufacturing, 10% faster than financial services, and 11% faster than media & entertainment.\u201d In other words, healthcare is one of the largest and fastest-growing industries in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the large budget allocated to healthcare, the amount of data generated, and the rapid digitalization of the industry, data visualization is critical to understanding patterns, supporting healthcare practitioners, communicating with patients, and tracking digital personal data. In this blog post, I will present notable historical data visualizations, discuss a recent graph from the New York Times, review graphs used in my health apps, and talk about how the future of healthcare data visualization might look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I think of historical public healthcare data visualizations, the first one that comes to mind is John Snow\u2019s map of the 1854 outbreak of cholera<\/a> in London. Cholera<\/a> was one of the deadliest diseases to affect Britain in the 19th<\/sup> century and at that time the belief was that the disease was transmitted by \u2018bad air\u2019 or \u2018bad smells\u2019 from rotting organic matter. John Snow\u2019s map represented a major contribution to the fight against cholera, as he was able to identify the source of the outbreak as the contaminated public water pump on Broad Street. Snow\u2019s findings literally changed lives. His work and map persuaded the local council to disable the water pump and led to changes in public health policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEarly public healthcare data visualizations<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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