HEALTH MAPPING: RESOURCES

Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs- http://www.IIRA.org
Electronic atlas includes county and city level commonly requested demographic information. IIRA projects include rural health care, rural economic and community development, value-added agriculture, rural education, rural public transportation, and policy management.

Illinois Department of Public Health- http://www.idph.state.il.us
Collects and evaluates health statistics to measure progress toward state and national health objectives. Database includes detailed vital statistics tables for residents of Illinois and counties.

IPLAN Information- http://app.idph.state.il.us/index.htm
Illinois Project for Local Assessment of Needs (IPLAN) contains a searchable database of more than 100 health indicators at state, county, and community levels. Categories include general health, access to care, demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, maternal and child health, infectious disease, chronic disease, environmental, occupational, and injury control.

Illinois Department of Economic Opportunity -http://www.illinoisbiz.biz/flipmaps/cp3.htm
Search for a specific community by region, contains community profiles of selected towns within a county. Profiles list general information about the community, as well as data on economic development, health, community, and education facilities, transportation, utilities, and employment information.

Census Bureau- http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/17000.html
Site contains national, state, county, city, and place data from 1990 and 2000 census. Search by county to view demographic profiles of a community, along with data to describe business, housing, income, and poverty. Provides population projections to 2025 and model-based estimates of income and poverty.

Illinois Health Care Cost Containment Council - http://www.state.il.us/agency/hcccc/
Among the products offered, DRG Analyst helps to determine outpatient migration and develop a health status profile for a zip code. Summaries of inpatient discharge data are be useful to make hospital-to-hospital comparisons of charges, length of stay, and total discharges.

Environmental Resources

Envirofacts - http://www.epa.gov/enviro/index_java.html
Search multiple EPA databases for environmental facts on a community, including chemical releases, water discharge permit compliance, hazardous waste handling processes, Superfund status, and air emission estimates. Maps can be created to illustrate results. Site also contains safe drinking water information and risk management plans by facility and geographic location.

Surf Your Watershed - http://www.epa.gov/surf/
Locate and view a watershed from county, zip code, or stream name. Use an Index of Watershed Indicators (IWI) to compute a score for a watershed based on local condition and vulnerability Indicators.