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McHenry County unveils Health Atlas: interactive dashboard intended to improve data access for residents and partners
Summary
Epidemiology coordinator Ryan Sachs demonstrated the county's new Health Atlas (healthymchenrycounty.org), a public visual‑analytics dashboard with roughly 301 indicators, maps, downloadable data and a 12‑month rolling view for near‑real‑time trend checks; the tool includes technical notes, suppression rules for small counts and a pilot AI query feature.
Ryan Sachs, the county’s epidemiology program coordinator, demonstrated the McHenry County Health Atlas to the Board of Health and staff, describing it as "the start of a visual analytics dashboard" that makes public‑health data accessible to residents, community partners and grant writers.
Sachs said the site aggregates about 301 indicators across public‑health priorities — access to care, behavioral health, chronic disease, communicable disease, maternal and child health, environmental health and more — and combines county, state and national benchmarks. He emphasized built‑in technical notes and data‑quality flags, explained that the site suppresses values when case counts are too small (under a threshold, often <10), and said that margins of error are shown so users don’t over‑interpret small differences.
Features Sachs highlighted include charts, maps (where census‑tract or ZIP code data exist), stratifications by race/ethnicity and age, downloadable datasets, and a 12‑month rolling comparison to provide a near‑real‑time signal when appropriate. He also noted an AI search pilot inside the platform that can help users find indicators but cautioned the tool is still being improved.
Board members asked how categories are set and why some topics — for example, water‑quality items or non‑binary gender categories — do not appear in certain indicators. Sachs explained that the county curated many indicators but relies on original data sources where categories are fixed and that missing entries often reflect suppression or lack of source data rather than an intentional omission.
Sachs said the Health Atlas will be updated as new data are released (some series go back 10 years or more) and that the team will monitor usage through built‑in analytics.
What’s next: the county promoted the how‑to video and a contact form on the Atlas for data requests and user questions.
