Visual Analytics for Data-Driven Understanding of the Substance Use Disorder Epidemic

Abstract

The substance use disorder epidemic has emerged as a serious public health crisis, presenting complex challenges. Visual analytics offers a unique approach to address this complexity and facilitate effective interventions. This paper details the development of an innovative visual analytics dashboard, aimed at enhancing our understanding of the substance use disorder epidemic. By employing record linkage techniques, we integrate diverse data sources to provide a comprehensive view of the epidemic. Adherence to responsive, open, and user-centered design principles ensures the dashboard’s usefulness and usability. Our approach to data and design encourages collaboration among various stakeholders, including researchers, politicians, and healthcare practitioners. Through illustrative outputs, we demonstrate how the dashboard can deepen our understanding of the epidemic, support intervention strategies, and evaluate the effectiveness of implemented measures. The paper concludes with a discussion of the dashboard’s use cases and limitations.

Developing Catchment Area Data Dashboards for Cancer Centers: A Stakeholder- engaged Approach

“…6 Data dashboards are widely used by industries and healthcare organizations for business intelligence as well as for tracking and monitoring their performance. 7,8 However, such dashboards remain untapped in the context of population health and are rarely developed with the end goal of community education and outreach. The main objective of this paper is to describe a systematic, stakeholder-driven, and theory-based approach for developing and evaluating catchment area data visualization tools for cancer centers.…”