Public Health Open Data
Public Health Data are utilized by so many people and organizations with different goals – from legislators and educators, to transportation planners and healthcare providers. Practically everyone in every field will use public health data in some form to drive their decisions, because data on public health encompasses nearly everything. However, many data sources are difficult to access, with indicators spread across numerous platforms or systems or require labor to relate or make sense of. The New Mexico Community Data Collaborative’s (NMCDC) open data platform de-silos public health data systems and brings the expertise of analyst and evaluator to your team. The New Mexico Community Data Collaborative’s (NMCDC) open data platform de-silos public health data systems by accessing a multitude of data systems with difficult entry points and act as an aggregator- pulling it all in one simple interface for ease of visualizing, relating, and correlating variables for community planning, resource allocation, grant writing, and other community driven work in New Mexico.
Community Ownership of Data
We have always been guided by the principle that data originating from the community must be returned to the community, and we strive to ensure that this happens. Our work centers community participatory methods, data stewardship, data sovereignty principles, and the understanding that community members are the experts, and public health data sets are a model of the human condition which should never be taken, interpreted, or utilized without the explicit consent in every step of the community.
Sharing Efforts, Reducing Labor
We strive to increase to positive outcomes from existing public health data and labor efforts, increase ease and efficiency of future labor for data efforts, and reducing duplicative efforts in assessments and resources expenditures throughout our New Mexico communities. With thoughtful engagement, one community effort may be beneficial to another – saving critical time and resources.
Global Data, New Mexico Focus
We bridge indicators across the spectrum and geography (from point level to international – but with the focus still on New Mexico and even your local community) de-aggregated data and visual data maps to be used in community assessments and engagements, to support funding efforts, to guide programming, or to advocate for policy change. Our team can support you with data acquisition, evaluation, data visualization, skill building, data management, because we know those resources are not always available on every team but their impact is very strong.
More about what the NMCDC provides
New Mexico Community Data Collaborative (NMCDC) supports with evaluation and quality improvement, which is measuring how effective of ineffective a process is and identifying areas of improvement. Evaluation for quality improvement may be required for many federal grants, such as via a logic model or other mandatory reporting measures. Evaluation is a critical tool to support growth in a program or initiative, and to help achieve goals. NMCDC can support your work with models including Kellogg framework, Urban Indian Health Institute Indigenous Evaluation framework, modified Madden Consulting framework, and others. We support the development and tracking of comprehensive community informed rubrics, logic models, and theories of change. NMCDC incorporates data collection for evaluation including qualitative and quantitative and supports with the development and facilitation of guided focus groups, Photovoice, vision boards, and other means of collecting data, as well as utilizing data you may already be collecting. We also expertise in the CDC Rapid Cycle Evaluation Framework for rapid impact with ‘good enough’ data.
Browse the New Mexico Community Data Collaborative (NMCDC) website to find data sets, maps, web applications, reports, and other information. All the products hosted are available without an account and to the community. We aggregate sources from around the state and many sources are national and even inter-national. We encourage the use and download of data in accordance with applicable data laws and use agreements from publishers. Data are categorized by CDC Health People 2030 categories with the addition of Indigenous Social Driver of Health from the Seven Directions framework.
The New Mexico Community Data Collaborative (NMCDC) website is operated through a premium ESRI ArcGIS Online (AGOL) site. Through this subscription, we have access to multiple software licenses to ESRI ArcGIS Pro Desktop and ArcGIS Online that we license out to community members who wish to become ‘community analysts’. If this is you, please reach out!
Fun fact – NMCDC actually participated in the beta-testing for the AGOL software.
The extensive library we house on the New Mexico Community Data Collaborative (NMCDC) website was curated from over a decade of data enthusiasts, public health professionals, and dedicated community members working collaboratively identify what are key indicators, where are they located, what are the barriers to access, and how can we break through those barriers. The data sets we house and maintain today are all 100% driven by community requests. Community feedback informing us of gaps in the library and new critical data needs along the way is what keeps the open data library comprehensive to serve the New Mexico community. Our methods include processing data as much as we can for a larger population set so that one effort can benefit more than one community, as it is highly likely that should one community have a need, others will have a similar need as well. This is how we save resources across the state.
New Mexico Community Data Collaborative (NMCDC) supports with legal epidemiological research, that is, how law and policy impact the distribution of afflictions across a population. Our analyst team and rich network within the National Network of Public Health Institutes affords Center for Health Innovation – Public Health Institute’s NMCDC access legal policy databases, which may include tribal law. In alignment with the principle that systems of power are responsible for change, and all too often data focuses on the outcomes and detriments to people, tracking year after year of continued detrimental outcomes, legal epidemiological data places those health outcomes in light of something much closer to a root cause.
New Mexico Community Data Collaborative (NMCDC) provides numerous training and skill building opportunities which are suitable for various audiences and settings. We engage audiences as unique in their experiences with using public health data as epidemiologist with the state health department to nursing students to youth in high school to promatoras to non-profit teams and more. We tailor our materials to the audience and include participatory components for engaging and meaningful workshops where participants leave with new skills, excitement, and direction for what is possible with community informed data practices. We provide user-ready templates for visualizing data, and telling community-oriented stories, so that the New Mexico community has increased capacity to utilize data for public good, in alignment with our core capacity as a public health institute. Current offerings include: All About Data; What is GIS?; Adopting Esri Hub Premium Sites; CDC Data to Action Framework; Intro to Legal Epidemiology; AI Boom: Controlling your Space.
New Mexico Community Data Collaborative (NMCDC) provides customized ongoing data analytics including GIS, statistics, research, reports, and visualization for print and web hosting. We have specialty in mapping and spatial data sets. Our team is equipped with a PI for research and publication needs and our network within the National Network of Public Health Institutes, as well as deep connections within rural New Mexico, affords our team great insights into conditions for researching and implementation for areas which impact communities in rural New Mexico.
It is not uncommon for teams and organizations to have ample data, but for those data to be underutilized, or disconnected from decision making. In a data retreat, organizations and teams will review all their data at once and discuss new ways of relating, joining, or simply using their existing data to inform new insights. Many participants in data retreats leave with new patterns of seeing data and deriving meaning from their data, and with new collaborations across program area. You may be a good candidate for this type of workshop if you: 1) utilize data for reporting than for quality improvement; 2) collect data and don’t know what to do with it; 3) struggle to derive meaning or insights from your data; 4) have disjointed data across your teams, departments, or programs; 5) need a fresh set of eyes to give news ideas and rejuvenate your team on the richness of the data you have at your fingertips.
