Visualizing Health, United States: Expanding the Audience of a Statistical Report

Background:  The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is the principal health statistics agency of the U.S. and a prolific producer of reports, including Health, United States. Every year, Health, U.S. provides academics and policymakers with data tables, charts, and technical appendices to document the nation’s health. Recently, there have been increased efforts to consolidate and visualize the data-rich report for a non-technical audience. The Health, U.S. Spotlight infographic resulted from this effort. This study describes the challenges and outcomes of developing an infographic within a federal statistical agency.

Program background:  The Health, U.S. Spotlight infographic was designed to deliver complex information to a non-technical audience. Infographics are optimized for dissemination on social media, where they can be shared among a wider audience. Four health indicators of interest were chosen from the report to produce a focused infographic. Four Spotlights were scheduled for quarterly release to increase engagement with Health, U.S. beyond its annual publication date.

The central challenge of visualizing Health, U.S. was creating a succinct, attractive, and informative infographic without losing the statistical rigor of the full report. Important features had to be incorporated, including up-to-date estimates, data sources, technical notes, and descriptions of trends. The Spotlight proposed two solutions to this challenge: an About the Data panel--with abbreviated notes and links to data sources for further exploration--and a Trends panel. The Trends panel was placed below each line graph to illustrate significant increases and decreases over time.  Additionally, the Spotlight provided data highlights comparing estimates between sociodemographic groups. The modular layout of the infographic enabled readers to scan the graphic quickly, exploring the data at their desired level of detail.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  After six months, the inaugural Health, U.S. Spotlight was released on February 16, 2016. The infographic was disseminated through many channels, including the Health, U.S. listserv, NCHS website, NCHS Facebook page, and NCHS and CDC Twitter accounts. Within a week of its release, engagement with Spotlight Twitter posts ranged from one to 22, with higher engagement attributed to posts with images. Impressions ranged from 200 to 400. On Facebook, 4,744 people saw the post introducing the Spotlight, and of those 4,744, 27 people interacted with the post. An analysis of website activity indicated that the Spotlight received 1,777 visits and 825 downloads from February 16 to February 29, 2016. On the publication day, web traffic to the Health, U.S. website increased 43.4% when compared to the previous year.

Conclusions:  Even though infographics have been used in health education campaigns, the Health, U.S. Spotlight demonstrates that infographics can also be used to communicate data found in complex statistical reports. In its inaugural issue, the Spotlight appealed to a wider audience, increasing traffic to the Health, U.S. website within a week of its release.

Implications for research and/or practice:  This infographic is a case study for federal statistical agencies looking to communicate their statistical reports to a broader, non-technical audience. Because the design of the Health, U.S. Spotlight was optimized for dissemination on several social media channels, some may find this study useful as they look for ways to enhance their social media presence.