Alabama Geography and Demographics

July, 2020

Introduction

This project explores geographic point and area layers that are useful for healthcare analysis, along with demographic data corresponding to the layers. The geographic information is displayed in an interactive map while the demographic information is displayed in interactive tables. All of the data, geographic and demographic, can be downloaded.

The interactive tables can be sorted on any field by clicking on the appropriate column header, and the data can be filtered by searching for text in the search bar. The buttons at the top of the table allow the table data to be copied to the clipboard, printed, or saved in various standard formats.

Layers

The term area layer refers to a collection of contiguous, non-overlapping geographical regions. The term point layer refers to a collection of locations that are idealized as geographical points, with each point characterized by a latitude and longitude. lThe primary layers used for our healthcare projects are as follows:

Fields

Most of the area layers have the same type of geographic and demographic fields (or variables) that are displayed in the tables.

User Interface

Our data are displayed in the form of interactive maps and tables. The maps generally have point or area layers that can be added or removed with the layer control on the map. The user can zoom in and out of a map and move about in the usual way. Zooming in reveals additional features such as small towns and then streets and roads. A click on the home button returns the map to its origional location and scale. The zoom-to-area button allows the user to zoom to a selected rectangular area of the map. Clicking on an object in a layer shows summary data for that object.

The interactive tables can be sorted by any field, by clicking on the header for that field. The buttons at the top allow the table data to be copied to the clipboard, in tab-separated text format, printed, or downloaded in various formats (tab-separated text, Excel, or PDF). With the search bar, the table can be filtered according to a text string.

In the interactive tables you can click on a row to select an object and see the object highlighted in the map. You can select as many rows as you wish. Click on a selected row again to de-select and remove the highlight in the map.

Limitations

The information and data presented in this project are provided as a service to the educational and healthcare communities. Although care was taken in gathering the data at the time of posting, no warranties are expressed or implied as to the correctness or usefulness of the material. Moreover, the project should be viewed as a snapshot in time. Inevitably, the further from the time of posting the less accurate the data will be.