Drexel UHC Data Portal

UHC Data Portal Updates: February 2023

uhc, January 31, 2023

• Data Portal Launched to UHC in December weekly forum 

                The UHC Data Portal has been introduced and launched to the UHC community at the December 7 weekly forum and the poster presentation link available here. Since that event, the Research & Data Core has added the datasets listed below. Our team is prioritizing datasets based on needs of ongoing UHC projects, requests submitted via email and research initiatives under development. If you have any questions or requests for new datasets, please contact to UHCdata@drexel.edu. 

• New resources 

           UHC R&D team published a resource sheet with information on the census and ACS dataset series to clarify on what is Census/ACS and how to use the data, what is the difference between decennial and 5-years estimate and much more to provide clarity about these series of datasets for those who are new to Census/ACS data. Click the link below to have access to the first resource Sheet. 

       https://data.uhcdata.org/news/?p=44 

• New datasets  

           During the past two months we added more than 15 new datasets. A large part of these new additions belonged to the nationwide American Community Survey population estimates. These population estimates by age group, sex and race/ethnicity can be used when knowing the number of people is important such as for denominators for mortality rates. 

New Philadelphia datasets include vacant buildings and land which complements the external conditions from parcel data previously included on the portal.  

In addition to SAS and CSV formats, some datasets that include boundaries are available as zipped geodatabases or shapefiles (SHP)  

SAS/CSV/SHP 

• Census tracts 2000 Philadelphia Camden Vineland CSA: Census tract boundaries for Philadelphia Camden Vineland CSA Tract 2000 Philadelphia Metro Area  
• Vacant Buildings & Land Census Tract 2010 boundaries 

• Vacant Buildings & Land Census Tract 2020 boundaries 
• Decennial Census (2000): Decennial Census (2000) Tract 2000 US for 2000  
• Decennial Census Population Estimates (2000): Decennial Census Population Estimates (2000) Tract 2000 US for 2000  

SAS/CSV 

• ACS 5-year aggregated summary data (2016-2020): American Community Survey Population Estimates 5-year (2005-2009) Tract 2000 US for 2005 to 2009  
• ACS Population Estimates 5-year aggregate for the following years:  

             2005-2009, 2006-2010, 2007-2011, 2009-2013, 2010-2014, 2011-2015, 2012-2016, 

 2013-2017, 2014-2018, And 2015-2019  

Census/ACS Resource Sheet

uhc, January 31, 2023

What is a resource sheet? 

UHC R&D team will soon be adding a new resource sheet tab to the UHC Data Portal. In this new resource sheet tab, the R&D team plans to provide extra information for inexperienced users to help them get more clarity on what and how to use datasets on the UHC Data Portal.  

Our first resource sheet provides some tips on using the Census and American Community Survey (ACS) dataset series. This resource sheet will help users understand the Census and ACS basics, how the data can be used including comparing over time, the difference between decennial census and ACS 5-year aggregate estimates, and much more information. The UHC R&D team also provides additional ACS resources, including technical documentation and codebook for more advanced users, under each dataset included on the UHC Data Portal. 

Click here to read the Census/ACS Resource Sheet

The UHC Research and Data Core is actively working on providing new dataset to be added to the portal and provide additional resource sheets on some datasets to provide tips on data use. If you are looking for more Information on specific dataset, please contact UHCData@drexel.edu. 

UHC Data Repository Measures Now Available on the New UHC Data Portal 

uhc, November 22, 2022

The newly developed UHC Data Portal is an online tool to provide access to selected data from the UHC Data Repository. The UHC Data Repository includes data and calculated measures from various sources that the UHC Research and Data Core has obtained and cleaned. These data can be used in research and reports for academic publications and community organizations, as well as in educational/training settings. Data span a number of urban health categories including demographics, health outcomes, environmental hazards, social environments, built environments, and natural environments. From the home page, clicking on a category or on “Data” at the top of the page brings the user to a web page that sorts and displays datasets. This web page allows users to search for the data they need. Data can be filtered by tags (keywords) or by dataset formats.  

UHC staff with expertise in urban health have compiled relevant data, including information on urban neighborhood environments, environmental exposures, health determinants, and health outcomes for the Philadelphia region and beyond. The data are readily available for use and provided in different formats such as SAS, CSV, Geodatabase (GDB) and shapefiles (SHP). Most measures have been aggregated to census tracts or ZIP code tabulation areas (ZCTA). In addition, users have access to codebooks and detailed methods documentation for each dataset. 

Some initial data currently included on the UHC Data Portal: 

• Demographic, housing, and socioeconomic measures from the US census and American Community Survey for multiple years (entire US) 

• Impervious surface and tree cover (Philadelphia Metro Area) 
• Air pollution (Philadelphia Metro Area) 
• Weather (Philadelphia Metro Area) 
• Crime (City of Philadelphia) 
• Prevalence estimates of chronic disease, health behaviors, health care access and usage, mental health, quality of life (City of Philadelphia) 

• Perceived safety and social cohesion (City of Philadelphia) 

The UHC Research and Data Core is actively working to expand which data from the repository are available; reach out to UHCdata@drexel.edu with any specific requests. All available data will be updated as possible by the UHC Research and Data Core.