Pressroom

Interactive Online Tool Provides Easy, User-Friendly Access to Population and Health Statistics Sorted By Legislative Regions

August 12, 2015

RICHMOND, VA – The process of geographically collating Virginia health and demographic data can be painstaking work. Thankfully, the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association’s research team has done it for you. VHHA recently unveiled its Community Health Legislative Dashboards – an interactive, online tool that enables users to review key population and health statistics by region throughout the Commonwealth. Using the dashboard, visitors to www.www.vhha.com can select a Virginia General Assembly member and the tool will populate the page with a slew of demographic data and statistical health markers corresponding to communities overlapping legislative districts. Information available through the dashboard includes population figures; educational attainment and unemployment rates; local hospital admissions; the amount of charity care local hospitals provide; the number of community physicians; data on adult obesity, smoking rates, and premature deaths; the percentage of uninsured area residents; and mortality rates due to chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and lower respiratory disease.
 
VHHA President and CEO Sean Connaughton said the production and online publication of the dashboard tool is part of VHHA’s ongoing commitment to educate the public in the name of promoting a healthier Virginia.
“Our members are jointly working to make Virginia the healthiest state in the nation by 2020. Achieving that goal requires cooperation in the public and private sectors, and participation by everyday Virginians. Accurate data is also vital as a barometer of the Commonwealth’s current population health, so all parties know where improvement can occur. With that in mind, VHHA is pleased to announce the availability of its new
Community Health Legislative Dashboards,” said Connaughton. “This tool on VHHA’s website provides up-to-date health and demographic data for the communities that comprise each of Virginia’s 100 House of Delegates districts and its 40 state Senate districts. Built by VHHA’s research team, this easy-to-use online tool only requires users to select a legislator. It then automatically populates the form with corresponding community figures and supplies clear explanations about each metric. We encourage people to take advantage of this useful tool.”
 
The dashboard tool now is a permanent feature on VHHA’s website. It gathers data from a host of sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Virginia Health Department, Virginia Health Information, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among others.
 
About VHHA: The Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association is an alliance of 107 hospitals and 30 health delivery systems that develops and advocates for sound health care policy in the Commonwealth. Its vision is to achieve excellence in both health care and health.
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