Child Health Data
The Foundation’s flagship website, www.kidsdata.org, celebrated its second year as a statewide resource at the end of 2011. Kidsdata.org offers data on child health and well being for all counties, cities, school districts and legislative districts in California.
Over the course of the year, a number of enhancements were made to improve site usability, and 20 child health indicators were added. Staff continued to reach out to potential users through a breadth of online and in-person communications, with the goal of promoting the use of data to bring increased attention to key health issues.
One notable enhancement was the addition of overlays to data maps that allow users to view data by legislative district. Many data sets are not available by district, so these overlays help provide a picture of how a district is faring on a given indicator. Two other popular new tools added in 2011 were one-page fact sheets, which enable users to print out data overviews in PDF format for any topic or region, and e-alerts, which permit users to sign up to be notified when updates are made to data of interest to them.
The site’s 20 new indicators include measures of obesity, preterm births, environmental health, and demographic data by legislative district. These indicators, and other data, were promoted on an ongoing basis through email advisories, blogs, and social media postings. To enhance these online strategies, staff members also held more than 25 kidsdata training workshops around the state.
The Foundation also participated in several significant initiatives to make health data more accessible to the public, including “Free the Data” with the California HealthCare Foundation, the Open Health Data Initiative with the federal Department of Health and Human Services, and the First 5 Children’s Data Initiative in Los Angeles County. In addition, the Foundation collaborated on major data releases with the Center for Health Policy Research, New America Media, the California Child Care Resource & Referral Network, and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.
More about the Foundation’s data and information programs is available at lpfch.org/programs.