Data sources

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Where To Look for Data

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One of the initial stumbling blocks for Community Health Mappers post-workshop, is where to look for data. There is a lot of data available online. Most municipalities, counties and states will have some sort of GIS data portal. These are sites where publicly available mapping data can be downloaded and are best found with an internet search. Those are simply too numerous to list. However, the list below is a good starting point for commonly used national GIS datasets.OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org/          Metro Extracts: https://mapzen.com/data/metro-extracts/          National Extracts: http://download.gisgraphy.com/          GeoFabrik Continental Extracts: http://download.geofabrik.de/index.htmlQuickOSM QGIS PluginNational Map: http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/basic/Includes  the following:

  • Boundaries
  • Elevation
  • Topo Maps
  • Hydrography
  • Imagery
  • Named Places
  • Land Cover

U.S. Census TIGER Boundaries and Roads:https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger.htmlCensus TIGER Boundaries

  • State boundaries
  • County boundaries
  • Census Tracts
  • Census Block Groups
  • Census Blocks

U.S. Census Socioeconomic Data: American Fact Finder: http://factfinder2.census.gov/Includes data from both the Census 2010 and Census 2000 as well as, American Community Survey (ACS) data.Use the Advanced Search to build selections for a specific topic in a specific geographic location.Geospatial Data Gateway (USDS Natural Resources Conservation Service)https://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/GDGHome_StatusMaps.aspx

  • Census geography
  • Climate / Precipitation
  • Elevation
  • Hydrology (rivers and streams)
  • Land Use/Land Cover
  • Aerial Photography/Imagery
  • Soils

Data.gov: Portal for the U.S. Government’s open data, some tabular, some geospatialCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)          National Center for Health Statistics http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/index.htm          CDC Geo-Spatial Resources page: https://www.cdc.gov/gis/resources.htmNational Library of Medicine          TOXMAP: Data from the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory and Superfund programshttp://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov/toxmap/          NLM’s list of Data, Tools and Statistics:https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hsrinfo/datasites.htmlBig Cities Health Inventory Data: https://bchi.bigcitieshealth.org/