Rice researcher available to discuss maps of Houston health issues

Rice University
Office of Public Affairs/News & Media Relations

EXPERT ALERT

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Amy McCaig
713-348-6777
amym@rice.edu

HOUSTON – (Sept. 16, 2015) – What do maps reveal about Houston’s health issues? Rice University sociologist Justin Denney, director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research’s Urban Health Program (UHP), is available to discuss eight newly released maps of health issues that plague Houstonians.

Downtown Houston

The maps, which were created by UHP as part of the Houston Aerosol Characterization and Health Experiment (HACHE), measure various health-related issues by ZIP code, including heart attacks, asthma, stroke, respiratory disease and other issues that may impact an individual’s health, such as particulate matter, demographics and socio-economic status. The data behind the maps come from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Denney said that when mapping any of these health conditions, the diseases – at least when mapped in a localized area – tend to follow similar patterns

“The conditions that tend to correlate to one health effect are often linked to many,” he said.

Denney said the maps tell an important story about the nature of health in the Houston area. Their purpose is to help leaders understand the nuances of these health patterns.

“If you want to know what the health problems are, you’ve got to locate them and systematically examine the importance of them in a variety of contexts,” Denney said.

The maps and an explanation of the methodology behind them are available online at http://kinder.rice.edu/uhp/hache/.

For more information or to schedule an interview with Denney to discuss the maps, contact Amy McCaig, senior media relations specialist at Rice, at 713-348-6777 or amym@rice.edu.

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This news release can be found online at https://news2.rice.edu.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Related materials:

Link to HACHE maps: http://kinder.rice.edu/uhp/hache/

Kinder Institute blog about HACHE: http://urbanedge.blogs.rice.edu/

Kinder Institute for Urban Research: http://kinder.rice.edu/

Previous Rice News coverage:

https://news2.rice.edu/2013/04/24/air-pollution-study-goes-mobile-2/

https://news2.rice.edu/2015/03/25/air-of-authority/

Photo link: https://news2.rice.edu/files/2015/04/houston_downtown_106.jpg

Photo credit: Rice University

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