Visualization Tool Description
Graphic representation is a great reporting tool, enabling viewers to understand key statistics and compare various variables. Vizhub’s website uses visualization data to provide health metrics and evaluations. It has information on almost all diseases and prevalence based on age, gender, location, and other measures such as deaths, years of healthy life lost due to disability (YLD), and disability-adjusted life years. The report compares the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Diabetes mellitus on two broader spectrums: communicable versus non-communicable diseases in the United States for the year 2019.
Health Issue and Related Data
Diabetes mellitus is non-infectious, unlike HIV, which is transferable from one person to another. The death rate for people across all ages and sexes for diabetes was higher at 2.74% (2.58%-2.87%), with an annual percentage change of 1.66% compared to that of HIV, which was 1.53% (1.38%-1.77%) with an annual percentage change of 1.98% (“GBD compare, 2023). The DALYs for females aged 70 years were 0.066% for HIV compared to 4.48% for diabetes (“GBD compare, 2023). Thus, the data changes depending on the variable under investigation.
Data Presentation Using Graphic Tools
The process of using the tool is straightforward, as the website provides a tour for visitors. The other advantage is that colors are used to differentiate between various causes of ill health. Specifically, blue is used for non-infectious conditions, red for communicable diseases, and green for injuries.
A simple glance at the visual reveals insights into the conditions with the highest health burden, YLDs, deaths, and DALYs. The disadvantage of using the website is that it has too much data in one visual, which can confuse new users. Moreover, a person can only read the figures correctly if the settings are adjusted accordingly.
Recommendations for Improvement
The visual provides information on all health issues, separated by color and box. However, it is unclear why some of the colors are faint while others are not within the mapped boxes and the bars on the extreme right side. For example, Alzheimer’s has a thick blue color, while the one for asthma is light blue. The tool helps compare diseases, their risk factors, and their burden across various regions. It can be improved by combining numbers and percentages to make it easier for people who want the exact figure without having to do calculations.
Reference
GBD compare | IHME viz hub. (2023.). Web.
