MADISON, Wis. (WMDX) – A gold mine of health data used by organizations all over the country may disappear.
For the last 15 years, the Population Health Institute at UW-Madison has put together a database called County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. It compiles all kinds of data, beyond people’s physical health.
“What people often think is that health is largely produced by health care, which is super important, but it’s only part of the story,” said Sheri Johnson, who leads the project. “We know that the community conditions that we create as a society are really important for producing population health, so things like access to parks and libraries … things like having a safe, affordable house to live in in a neighborhood where you feel like you belong, adequate income for families so they can meet their basic needs.”…