The University of Montana announced on Apr. 17 the launch of the Montana Healthy Communities Dashboard, an online interactive map that brings together health, environmental, and socioeconomic data from across the state into a single location.
The new dashboard aims to make it easier for researchers, policymakers, and health officials to analyze connections between environmental and social factors and public health in Montana. By centralizing information such as asthma rates, wildfire smoke days, and median household income, users can more efficiently explore how different factors influence community well-being.
“We started it because we had so much data, and we wanted to have it in a place that anyone – community members, researchers, local health officers or whoever wanted access to the data – could look at it in a visual way,” said Ava Orr, one of the university’s research scientists involved in developing the project. Erin Landguth, professor at UM’s School of Public and Community Health Sciences (SPCHS) and director of UM’s Data and Modeling Core for Population Health Research Center said: “The Montana Healthy Communities Dashboard is an open-access, interactive web platform designed to break down data silos. It brings together environmental exposures like air quality and wildfire smoke, health outcomes like asthma and premature mortality, and socioeconomic resources like income and housing stock – all onto a single localized map.”
Inspired by similar efforts such as California’s Healthy Places Index, the dashboard uses color-coded maps to show areas ranking high or low on various determinants including air quality events or chronic disease prevalence. The tool also introduces an Adaptive Capacity Index (ACI), which measures communities’ abilities to recover from natural disasters or public health crises based on 13 variables grouped into demographics; housing/transportation; language/education; and socioeconomics. Cindy Leary—a statistician on the project—said: “We want to be able to understand how vulnerable different communities are, and then list potential interventions to help those different communities.”
Although developed with public health research in mind—and funded by grants from Missoula Invest Health as well as UM’s Center for Population Health Research—the dashboard is free for anyone interested. “In our hearts as researchers we want everyone to have as much access to information as they possibly can,” Leary said. “If people want to be able to explore the impacts of air pollution on health or how social determinants of health are correlated with different health outcomes—that’s our goal in terms of being part of an educational system…”
David Heyman from Axis Maps contributed software development expertise while community partners such as Missoula Public Health collaborated throughout development. After its April 14 launch date passed this year—the team hopes ongoing feedback will help tailor future datasets for specific needs among Montana’s public-health departments.
According to the official website, the University of Montana offers virtual and in-person tours for prospective students while accommodating more than 11,000 students through undergraduate through professional degree programs via established admissions processes. The university operates within higher education with both online/distance-learning options available beyond its main campus setting.
Looking ahead at continued expansion possibilities Landguth said: “The April 14 launch is not the finish line; it’s the starting line… Now that architecture is in place there are endless avenues where this can go.”
