Madison Area and Wisconsin Covid Pandemic Dashboards
Honorable Mention, Digital Map Award in 48th CaGIS Map Competition
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I made this interactive dashboard of Madison Area (Dane County) showing COVID-19
Pandemic as well as relevant information from a geographic perspective. This
dashboard is originally my volunteered product for community benefits, instead of
seeking academic achievements, though I later got endorsed by my research lab (SCDM)
led by Professor Qunying Huang. One of our research focuses is “spatial science for
social good”, and we hope this product could be a practice of “Wisconsin Idea”, that
university research should be applied to solve problems and improve the life of
state citizens. Since all the data are available (from WI health department), and we
happen to have the skills and experience in bettering visualizing these datasets, it
is our duty and honor to serve our lovely local communities.
This map won the Best Student Map in
Wisconsin Land Information Association (WLIA) Map Contest
(2021), and is the Honorable Mention of David Woodward Digital Map Award in
48th CaGIS Map Design Competition
(2021).
Technically, I utilized Esri dashboard embedding ArcGIS Online interactive map to
visualize the cumulative and weekly pandemic and relevant infographics in Dane
County (such as university housing, major off-campus apartment, university and
community testing sites). Most datasets are from the server of Wisconsin Department
of Health Services. The entire platforms include desktop and mobile versions for
Chinese and English interface, as well as a recently released statewide version with
similar visualization but more options of administrative scale: census tract, zip
code, sub-region (city, village, town), and school district. Infographics include
growth chart and deaths proportion by sex, age, race, ethnicity, and
hospitalization.
As a geography student, I think Wisconsinites should appreciate that our state
government is willing to provide these datasets in an organized and scientific way
(accurate enough in multiple levels, regular and frequent update, with historic
data), together with satisfying consideration of privacy issue (e.g. hide the number
of positive cases when a tract has less than 5 cases). As far as I know, over half
of U.S. states only released county level data, and Wisconsin is the state with best
public Covid data availability. Our story in Madison has already proved that even
under similar overall patterns (Sep and Oct), the actual increase modes could be
significantly different: centralized outbreak in Sep, distributed outbreak in Oct.
Without data from a fine-enough geospatial scale, there is no way to make targeted,
effective, and scientific policies.
Though I have some different opinions on how the state health department utilizes
choropleth map to display total value, I don’t question their authority at all in
leading us to fight against the pandemic. In this tough time, staying together is so
important, and we should definitely show great respect and honor to WI Department of
Health Service, Public Health Madison and Dane County, and UW-Madison’s relevant
department including “Smart Restart Plan”. I hope my platform will become another
useful tool in our toolkits, together with the WI DHS website, PHMDC Dashboard and
UW-Madison COVID Dashboard. People are supposed to follow the official guidance and
authorized information.
During an average day, there are about 500 daily visits from all platforms. The
dashboard is included/endorsed by
UW Data Science
,
WLIA
, and
Esri Covid-19 Map Gallery
.
Relevant News Report: Oct 10, 2020 by Channel3000 (
Article
,
Video
), reprint by News Break, Ground News; Oct 27, 2020 by Channel3000 (
Article
,
Video
), reprint by FOX47, Badger Herald; Nov 9, 2020 by Badger Herald (
Article
), reprint by News Break.
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