new online tool helps navigate the city’s health trends | Department of Public Health

Many different things can determine how healthy we are. For example, where we were born or where we live now can impact our overall health. Where we work during the week, what we do on our nights and weekends, or even where we go to worship can all play a role.

A new online tool called PhilaStats is ready to help users compare these different factors — sometimes called social determinants of health — in different Philadelphia neighborhoods. The interactive dashboard highlights population trends, as well as information on births and deaths in the city between 2011 and 2019. It will be updated as more years of data become available .

According to Dr. Megan Todd, Data Lab Manager for the Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention, “PhilaStats is revolutionizing the way the Health Department displays and shares our city’s vital statistics data. “, making them more accessible to the general public, community groups, journalists and researchers. This tool allows Philadelphians to learn about key health trends in the social and demographic context of the city.”

With PhilaStats, health outcomes can be compared by gender, age, and race/ethnicity. In addition to city-wide data, PhilaStats displays data by smaller geographic areas alongside date on structural and social factors, allowing users to visualize patterns of disadvantage across the city.

PhilaStats provides easy-to-read maps and graphs that display data on topics relevant to the lives of many Philadelphians. Some of the findings displayed on the dashboard include the following:

• The areas of the city with the highest death rates closely match the areas of the city with the highest poverty rates.
• Drug overdoses have become the leading cause of premature death in Philadelphia.
• Homicide has been the top killer of young black men since 2012.
• Although adolescent birth rates have declined over the past decade, disparities by race/ethnicity persist.
• Lung cancer mortality rates have declined over the past decade in men and, to a lesser extent, in women.

And for those who like to dig a little deeper into the data, all of the data used to power the PhilaStats dashboard is available for download at OpenDataPhilly.