Hartford Data Platform

Some folks believe that “home is where the heart is.” It’s their source of comfort, shelter, and a place to decompress from the day. For others, however, home is at the heart of their anxieties, especially for some Hartford residents. How can people practice healthy hygiene when they don’t have running water? How can children focus on their schoolwork when their house doesn’t have adequate heat? And how can parents make the best move for their families when the lack of affordable housing might mean choosing between rent or groceries?

To examine the relationship between health and housing in the capital city, the Connecticut Data Collaborative and the Liberal Arts Action Lab created the Hartford Data Platform, which includes the Health in Hartford's Neighborhoods data story and The Neighborhood Data Explorer. The Neighborhood Data Explorer is an interactive platform that dives deeper at the census-tract level. It allows users to sort data based on health, housing, demographic, and economic measures and compare results by selecting individual census tracts or entire neighborhoods. By investigating the relationship between these measures, we can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the key factors that impact Hartford residents.

The data are from the 500 Cities Project. This project is a collaboration between CDC, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the CDC Foundation. The purpose of the 500 Cities Project is to provide city- and census tract-level small area estimates for chronic disease risk factors, health outcomes, and clinical preventive service use for the largest 500 cities in the United States. In the spring of 2018, the Connecticut Data Collaborative and the Liberal Arts Action Lab were awarded the 500 Cities Data Challenge grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute, which encourages communities to dig into the 500 Cities dataset and design innovative solutions that address social factors driving community health outcomes. To explore the Hartford Data Platform, click here.