Health Atlas: Tutorial of a Visualization Tool and Data Resource for Place-Based Social and Structural Determinants of Health

BACKGROUND The physical and social environment can have a significant impact on health. Examining place-based social and structural determinants can help inform effective public health interventions. The availability of publicly accessible place-based data has greatly expanded over the past decade, but the growth of data resources has been segmented and non-uniform. Health Atlas provides a single online platform for place-based data to help users explore place-based factors that influence health. OBJECTIVE To describe the process, methods, and data used to develop Health Atlas and provide examples that highlight use of the public facing site. METHODS The initial California-only version of Health Atlas launched in April 2020, and a national version was launched in Fall 2024. Data assets were curated to include multiple domains of social determinants of health aggregated at different geographic levels. Data were included from American Community Survey, CDC PLACES, and other public sources as well as custom data developed by partners. An interactive website was designed with a technical infrastructure that supports custom visualizations, descriptive statistics, and flexible data downloads. RESULTS HealthAtlas.ucsf.edu includes data on over 200 variables across five data domains: Demographics, Socioeconomic, Neighborhood, Environment, and Health and Healthcare. Users can visualize and aggregate data for seven geographic levels: census tract, ZIP code tabulation area (ZCTA), county, congressional district, core-based statistical area (CBSA), public use microdata area (PUMA), and state. Most data are available across all 50 states in the U.S., District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Users can explore Health Atlas to better understand the relationship between selected variables via maps, histograms, scatterplots, and summary plots. Data can also be downloaded for further use. CONCLUSIONS Health Atlas provides user-friendly tools for visualization and a data download feature to support use by researchers, community organizations, government entities, and public health professionals.