You can also create custom data queries on the data portal. Using asthma as an example, to access the data portal, you click on the explore maps and tables button at the top of the page and the data query page appears. You will go from left to right down each column filling in the data query criteria.
So, let’s select Asthma Emergency Department Visits. For the geography of interest, lets select EOHHS regions, and let’s look up data for year 2020, for all age groups and for males and females combined. We’ll select the “Submit” button to run the query.
At this time, the most current year available for this dataset is 2020. We update our datasets on our Tracking Portal when new years of data are available.
The query has loaded bringing up a map display. You can also look at this data in table and chart views. You also have the ability to export the data to an excel file.
Going back to the map, we see age-adjusted rates of Asthma Emergency Department Visits for 2020. Arrows on the map indicate statistical significance, which I’ll turn off, for now. Let’s zoom and take a closer look at the Southeast Region. In the map view, you have the ability to add environmental, infrastructural, and other relevant data layers to the map. As an example, let’s add the “Tier Classified Sites” map layer. These data points show the approximate location of oil and hazardous material disposal sites.
You can also add Environmental Justice data by selecting the “EJ Block Groups Boundaries” layer. Environmental Justice block groups appear outlined in red on the map. We can see here, there are EJ block groups concentrated in the Brockton area, in the Fall River area, and in the New Bedford area.
You can also add Environmental Justice criteria to the map to see which Environmental Justice criteria are met. Yellow areas meet the minority criteria, areas in green meet the income criteria, and areas in blue meet the English isolation criteria. The remaining colors represent any combination of 2 or more criteria.