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Shreya Nagendra:
Hi, everyone. I’m Shreyana Nagendra, Senior Research Analyst and Program Evaluator at the Chicago Department of Public Health. I’m excited to share highlights from the Phase One evaluation of the Chicago Health Atlas. This federally funded evaluation was led by CDPH in collaboration with partners at UIC and Metopio. The Chicago Health Atlas is a publicly accessible, web-based data platform that launched back in 2012. It features over 400 hyperlocal health indicators, along with tools for data exploration, visualization, and community resource mapping to advance public health work across the city.

As interest in the platform continued to grow, both locally and from other jurisdictions, CDPH launched the first formal evaluation of the platform in 2023 to assess its programmatic value and the current public health landscape. We used a mixed-methods, outcome-focused approach to evaluate three main areas. Reach, that is how visible the platform is, and who’s using it. Utility, that is, how users are applying the data and tools in real-world settings. And User Experience, that is what’s working well and where we can improve.

Findings were based on site usage metrics, user survey and interview data, as well as external citations. In terms of reach, the platform saw a remarkable eightfold increase in total unique users, growing from just under 14,000 in 2021 to more than 113,000 in 2025. Survey data revealed broad cross-sector engagement. The top three user groups were academia, community-based organizations, and local government. In the last five years alone, users downloaded nearly 14 million data points and over 15,000 visualizations. These insights supported many local efforts, from the city’s health improvement plan and COVID-19 outreach to resource allocation and healthcare access monitoring to research and educational applications as well.

Users reported high satisfaction with the platform. Top-rated features were interactive maps, granular neighborhood-level data, and download tools. They also identified opportunities for improvement, such as broader data coverage and more intuitive navigation. Feedback that’s actively guiding the next phase of enhancements.

In conclusion, this evaluation affirms that the Chicago Health Atlas plays a vital role in the city’s public health infrastructure. It promotes data transparency and strengthens evidence-based, community-centered decision-making, and more broadly, this work shows how PHIG’s investment in building local evaluation capacity is paying off. At CDPH, we’re now better equipped to generate timely, actionable insights that sharpen our strategy, guide funding decisions, and data-driven evolution of our programs. Thanks so much for tuning in to explore the platform. Head to chicagohealthatlas.org. And for questions or thoughts about this work, please contact me at shreya.nagendra@cityofchicago.org. Thank you.