Tag: health

The Life Expectancy Gap Between Men and Women

Today’s post comes via my coworker Jonathan and his subscription to National Geographic. The spread below looks at the gap in life expectancy between men and women in the United States. Outliers are highlighted by drawing lines to the counties in question while the same colour scale is used on a smaller map to look at historic data. And of course for those concerned about how the US places amongst its piers on the international stage, a small selection of countries are presented beneath in a dot plot that looks at the differences and averages.

The National Geographic spread
The National Geographic spread
A detail of the choropleth map
A detail of the choropleth map
A closer look at the dot plot
A closer look at the dot plot

Credit for the piece goes to Lazaro Gamio.

Influenza

The Washington Post has an interactive infographic piece out about the spread of the flu. The big draw is of course the map—people like maps and they are easy to navigate. However, this time the map actually can serve a useful purpose because a virus spreads through the contact of people and communities. And when illustrated over time, the user can see a general spread from the deep south to the Mid-Atlantic than the west before becoming a national problem.

The geographic distribution of the flu
The geographic distribution of the flu

But a really sharp component that I enjoy is the index of flu cases from the four most recent flu seasons. While half the years displayed have seen a gradual increase in the number of hospitalisations, the 2012–13 season became quite troublesome quite quickly. It has even surpassed the 2009–10 levels that were affected by the H1N1 pandemic.

An indexed look at the rampancy of influenza outbreaks
An indexed look at the rampancy of influenza outbreaks

Lastly, not shown here, is an illustration of just what the flu is—a virus—and how it spreads and where anti-viral drugs work.

Credit for the piece goes to Darla Cameron, Dan Keating and Alberto Cuadra.