I’m excited to announce the completion of my CHI project “Mapping the Young Lords”.
This project has seen a few iterations since I first thought about what it would be in December. The goal of the site is to visualize the consequences of public health related direct action on behalf of the Young Lords organization in New York City during the early 1970s. My argument is that because of the visibility brought to the public health disparities experienced by Black and Latinx residents of Harlem and the Bronx, the Young Lords were ultimately successful in bettering health outcomes in their immediate communities. This is measured by the opening of hospital facilities in these neighborhoods. The project visualizes the explosion of out patient and other hospital facilities that occurred after 1976.
There are many ways this could have been done. Ultimately, I went with an admittedly easier option than what I initially proposed. Instead of utilizing interactive maps vi Mapbox, I used data from Open New York to create static visualizations. Wile not as interactive as I initially would have hoped, I do believe this project is successful in telling the story I wanted to tell.
Over the next few months, I will be adding interactivity to the maps to provide a more eye-catching experience. Furthermore, I do believe there is further potential in alternative data sets to show material changes as related to public health. If I could show consequences of the demand for social determinants of health in a specific locale, for example, maybe I could replicate this to show changes in communities that work with non-profit organizations. Social determinants of health are almost solely measured with income mapping and survey data. I hoped that this project would be a springboard to help think about other ways to measure the social determinants of health.While this is not what I’d thought it would be, it is still something I am extremely proud of and I hope it provides.
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