Open Data, for better health

The city’s open data team and the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas have announced a partnership to use data available through Austin’s Open Data Portal for strategies to improve population health in Central Texas. The data programs expected to be used in the partnership include the Neighborhood Health Initiative, the school’s Center for Place-Based Initiatives that looks for links to surroundings and health outcomes, and a collaborative effort to better prevent lead poisoning in children. The open data team holds monthly meetings and looks for ways to utilize the large data set to solve for community issues. Last month the medical school launched a biomedical data science hub separate from the city effort that will also analyze large quantities of data to address population health problems such as diabetes prevention and treatment.