Those who know me know that I am obsessed with data and data visualization. I spend a good chunk of my job supporting population health surveillance projects and have developed dashboards to facilitate data-driven decision making; however, this primarily involves R, excel and to some extent tableau.
In my spare time I also dabble in computer programming. As demonstrated by this website, I have a recent interest in html5 and javascript coding. Maintaining my own website allowed me to explore javascript data visualization libraries, such as HighCharts, as well as MySQL databases. Combined, these allow amazing customization of the data visualization experience.
Perhaps one of the most famous interactive population data websites is GapMinder, developed by the incredible Dr. Hans Rosling and his team. The animations help convey the trends over time and can lead to new insights, particularly for the lay public.
I wanted to experiment with similar animations for local data, so I developed the CommunityDx Viz Lab. While currently limited to geography-specific population pyramids, I hope to use this platform to play around with different ways to visualize local data using animations. In the mean time, I hope to use these animations to demonstrate the change in age composition of populations in British Columbia. This is particularly relevant in healthcare, where many communities are seeing a considerable increase in the senior population relative to other age groups.