Project Goal
Children’s National Hospital maintains the District of Columbia Pediatric Asthma Registry. It is well documented that housing is a significant social determinant of health and contributes to asthma disparities. Urban populations living in poverty are more likely to suffer from housing insecurity and have higher rates of pediatric asthma. Low-income housing units contain significant environmental hazards associated with asthma; however effective remediation involves efforts beyond the remediation of the single-family housing unit. We sought to develop an interactive healthy housing map leveraging public data on housing conditions and pediatric asthma outcomes for multifamily housing units in the District of Columbia.Business Problem Solved
We needed to better understand not only spatial patterns of pediatric asthma, but how to direct very limited resources for environmental remediation of asthma triggers. This project geocoded and aggregated patients into multi-family properties using real estate information. Once we knew how many patients lived in the properties, we could better understand asthma morbidity across the various properties and link to reported housing violations and inspection scores. Once we knew the properties with the greatest asthma morbidity and the reported asthma triggers, we could deploy resources to remediate them with the ultimate goal of reducing asthma exacerbations and keeping kids healthy.
Technology Implemented
ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, web maps and configurable applications.
Development Team Biography
Gina Dwyer, MPH is the Public Health Data Analyst Lead in the Child Health Data Lab, within Population Health and Community Analytics at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. In this role, she provides data analytics and geospatial analysis to support community engagement, research, and advocacy initiatives focused on improving child health.