Nowadays data plays an important role in public healthcare management. To better understand what stories large volumes of data tell, we need accurate and clear data visualizations to uncover the actionable insights. Below is an example of data visualization created by Ken Patton and Dr. Heather King, which analyzes health outcomes by prevalence across a number of demographic factors including geography, gender, age, and activity levels.
The cells displayed in different colors and percentages immediately convey the messages that African-Americans and people with annual income between 10-15k have higher prevalence of diabetes. The distribution map indicated that diabetes are more prevalent in Pennsylvania and Southern States. The appropriate use of colors enhanced the story telling. It is accepted that colors have meanings. The warm colors (i.e. red, orange) usually describe danger or worse situations while the cool colors (i.e. light blue) usually indicate safe or less worse situations. So it’s a good design of data visualization as it’s easy to catch the points and very intuitive.
source: http://www.tableau.com/stories/workbook/tackle-government-data-public-health
reference: http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/best-practices-healthcare-data-visualization