This Spring we’re tracking how a small New England town uses data to evaluate a large warehouse project. And we’ve created a case-study in Hack The Future so that you can lend a hand. We’re tracing the evolution of COVID visualizations. And we’re getting ready to tackle a digital transformation by brushing up on our data strategy skills.
In “Deciding When to Suspend a Vaccine,” Tim Harford explores why we often misjudge risk by confusing coincidence with causality, and the dilemma regulators face balancing public health with pure science. If you listen to one Podcast about COVID vaccine hesitation, listen to this ~8 min episode of More or Less by the BBC. One reason why More or Less was chosen as our Top Podcast this Spring.
It’s interesting to see how visualizations of the pandemic have evolved over the past year, and the NY Times is often at the forefront. This example uses small multiples, radial graphs and color to compare the barriers to vaccination by geography.
I was browsing an exhibit of Utagawa Hiroshige when I came across these delightful examples of small multiples to teach how various shadow creations are made. I never cease to be amazed by the power and impact of this relatively simple technique for comparison.
Apparently there is some disagreement about whether People of Color (POC) suffer disproportionately from Police shootings in the US. At issue is whether to use the total number of deaths, or the more accurate deaths per million measure that reflects differences in population size. The following chart, and the accompanying explanation of how the data was collected, is one of the more clear, objective visualizations of the fact that POC suffer disproportionately:
