WPRDC demystifies health trends with these new public datasets

From fish fries to COVID-19 infections, the Pittsburgh open data organization has new findings to share.

the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center (WPRDC) recently released a number of new public health-focused datasets, as part of its mission to support research and community engagement through open data.

Supported by the Richard King Mellon Foundation, Heinz Endowment Fund, University of Pittsburgh and more, the center provides comprehensive datasets and visualizations to mediate in promoting local data literacy. The center works with local government organizations and other institutions to release data of all kinds, from 311 requests to restaurant inspections to fires.

Last month, the most notable sets that became publicly available through the center included vital statistics data for Allegheny County, tracking the total number of births and deaths in the area. Birth outcome data and mortality data each have two files, covering trends at the county level and across 2010 census tract areas. The new sets – which track the incidence of birth outcomes by race, medical insurance, gestation time, birth weight and other factors, and mortality by cause of death, age group and race – paint a clearer picture of the various social determinants of health that exist in the Pittsburgh area .

“A lot of the work involved in making the data available involves participating in many different community conversations,” said the WPRDC project director. Bob Gradeck Recount Technically. Many of these have involved discussions of health equity and finding ways to make data from civic organizations more accessible and digestible for the everyday Pittsburgher.

The process to get this data into the hands of the public isn’t complicated, exactly, but it can take time. Gradeck’s team could walk into an organization with the data and say, “Here’s the use case, here’s what we’re looking for, and here’s what we’d like it to include,” he said. In the case of civil status data, the Allegheny County Health Department gathered the data, then the two organizations discussed potential privacy issues or risks of sharing it. The WPRDC processes the file, the county puts it through the approval process – “and then we have the data ready to go.”

[Editor’s note: Check out Technical.ly’s 2018 reporting series Open Data PGH for more on open data trends and the work to track them in Pittsburgh.]

WPRDC’s Bob Gradeck speaks at the 2018 Open Data PGH closing event. (Photo from File Technical.ly)

Outside of the vital statistics dataset, Gradeck said the organization also recently released findings on COVID-19 infections and reinfections in Allegheny County, inspections and plumbing violations and, of course, updates to the annual Lenten fry map, updated annually in collaboration. with Pittsburgh area code.

There will be even more in the coming weeks, Gradeck said. Continuing to work with the county health department, other county datasets Housing and Community Environment Program and additional pandemic-related datasets will soon be available on the WPRDC website.

by Mayor Ed Gainey The new administration, Gradeck added, has also been particularly supportive of making more datasets available to the public.

“I think a lot of the work we’ve done around structural racism and the social determinants of health is of great interest to them as well,” he said, noting one of the main campaign platforms of Gainey to identify the root of inequality in Pittsburgh. “The other thing too is learning more about how they value data governance as a process and as an important part of running the city, but also working with everyone who live there to understand some of the data they’re working with – that’s also encouraging.

This support will be important as the WRPDC seeks to expand its own efforts to promote data literacy. Although the pandemic has made it more difficult to work in person with different community organizations and help people understand exactly what a new set of data means, Gradeck said the organization has tried to be more active in its communications on social media and through blog posts detailing key trends and highlights.

As we approach 2022, “we’re looking at community literacy and how to interact and make sense of data, how to find data,” he continued. “It’s also going to extend to many of the partnerships we have with nonprofits in the city and in the county as well, in terms of developing workshops that anyone can attend to understand not just how to structure a spreadsheet, but more on, how we think about power dynamics with data and a lot of things that go into our definition of data literacy.


Sophie Burkholder is a 2021-2022 corps member of Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by Heinz endowments. -30-

Maria J. Book