Health Story Maps

As we kick off a new semester of the Honors Seminar linking mapping, design and health, it would be useful to think about some very different ways that maps can speak to health issues. South Carolina has a very data-driven story map that allows side-by-side comparisons of health-related issues across the state. With maps like these, the biggest challenge may be the density of information that they contain. A remarkably different example is a story-driven story map by a group called One Million Community Health Workers Campaign. Each story it tells is mapped, but the locations and the map are more about background and context than they are data.

The point is, not only are there many different types of health issues that can be mapped (obesity, infectious diseases, cancer clusters) but there are many different ways to map them. As we move ahead with our exploration of mapping technologies,