Knowledge Visualizations to Inform Decision Making for Improving Food Accessibility and Reducing Obesity Rates in the United States

Abstract

The aim of this article is to promote the use of knowledge visualization frameworks in the creation and transfer of complex public health knowledge. The accessibility to healthy food items is an example of complex public health knowledge. The United States Department of Agriculture Food Access Research Atlas (FARA) dataset contains 147 variables for 72,864 census tracts and includes 16 food accessibility variables with binary values (0 or 1). Using four-digit and 16-digit binary patterns, we have developed data analytical procedures to group the 72,684 U.S. census tracts into eight and forty groups respectively. This value-added FARA dataset facilitated the design and production of interactive knowledge visualizations that have a collective purpose of knowledge transfer and specific functions including new insights on food accessibility and obesity rates in the United States. The knowledge visualizations of the binary patterns could serve as an integrated explanation and prediction system to help answer why and what-if questions on food accessibility, nutritional inequality and nutrition therapy for diabetic care at varying geographic units. In conclusion, the approach of knowledge visualizations could inform coordinated multi-level decision making for improving food accessibility and reducing chronic diseases in locations defined by patterns of food access measures.

Integrating Datasets on Public Health and Clinical Aspects of Sickle Cell Disease for Effective Community-Based Research and Practice

“…Online access to the datasets and visualizations are available as Supplementary Material . We previously constructed datasets and interactive visualizations to inform health promotion [ 18 , 20 ]. The interactive resources developed here allow users of the resources to explore scholarly publications for knowledge on the clinical and public health aspects of sickle cell disease.…”

“…Among the knowledge items used to assess patient readiness for transition are: (1) name and type of the disease; (2) the main genetic and pathophysiological characteristics; (3) baseline hemoglobin level; (4) treatment, role of each drug; (5) adherence to treatment; (6) course of action in the event of pain, fever, or priapism; and (6) method for escalating analgesics [ 49 ]. We recently advocated for the use of knowledge visualization frameworks in the creation and transfer of complex public health knowledge [ 18 ]. Sickle cell disease is an example of complex public health knowledge, where effective, efficient and engaging (i.e., smarter) learning environments [ 50 ] on a large and sustainable scale are urgently needed in an era of social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic [ 51 ].…”

“…Therefore, it is possible to group recommendations from multiple clinical aspects of sickle cell disease by an eight-digit binary number. We have previously used the binary number encoding for integrating data on farmers markets as well as obesity rates [ 18 , 20 ].…”

“…Furthermore, interactive analytics is used, where a stored dataset can be queried in an ad-hoc manner in order to find useful information quickly [ 17 ]. We have applied visual analytics software to design and implement interactive analytics resources for use with or without access to internet-stored content [ 18 , 19 , 20 ].…”

Guest editorial: Knowledge visualisation for strategic decision-making in the digital age

“…personal, interpersonal, team, organisational, inter-organisational and societal (see, e.g. Eppler, 2013;Eppler and Burkhard, 2007;Gavrilova et al, 2019;Isokpehi et al, 2020;Meyer, 2010;Tergan et al, 2006).…”