Data Analytics
Data is at the very heart of what it means to be a smart city. But truly smart cities do more than just collect data from a wide array of sensors. It’s how they use that data to make a difference for their residents that really matters.
One of the most powerful uses of data is in personalizing city services. Cities are seldom uniform. The key to addressing issues is often understanding the unique circumstances that affect certain groups or neighborhoods.
Baltimore has long history of using neighborhood-level data to improve public health. The latest example of this involves using fire department response data to help curb opioid abuse.
“While we had the data to recognize when spikes of overdoses were occurring in clusters, we were having difficulty determining exactly where in the city spikes of opioid overdoses were happening in real-time,” said Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Letitia Dzirasa.
The analytics system constantly evaluates records from medics who respond to non-fatal opioid overdose calls. When it spots a problem area, it triggers an alert.
“When a cluster is detected, the Health Department is able to immediately deploy outreach workers and overdose prevention resources, as well as alert our partner organizations, to that specific part of the city,”
- Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, Baltimore Health Commissioner
Last year, it directed them to 85 such clusters. And Baltimore is sharing the analytics technology with other cities facing similar issues.
For more than a decade, Baltimore has been preparing neighborhood-by-neighborhood reports to help it tailor its overall health services. The Neighborhood Health Profiles examine the top causes of death and the rates of certain diseases and conditions, as well as evaluate possible factors.
The narrow data slices can be used to help develop possible strategies to reduce certain health problems. If one neighborhood has a particularly high rate of diabetes, you can also see if it’s located in a food desert or has a high density of fast food restaurants.
Over time, the ability to target health services appears to make a difference. In 2009 — the year after the first neighborhood survey — Baltimore had one of the country’s worst infant mortality rates. Black babies were five times as likely to die as white babies, and 128 babies that were born that year didn’t survive to their first birthday.
Baltimore partnered with the state and community groups to offer new support services to mothers, their babies and their families. Since then, the overall mortality rate has dropped by 38 percent and the gap between black and white babies has been reduced by half.
