The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati and the American Academy of Family Physicians Launch HealthLandscape

CINCINNATI, OH--(Marketwire - December 16, 2008) - The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) today introduced HealthLandscape, an interactive web atlas that allows health professionals, policy makers, academic researchers and planners to combine, analyze and display information in ways that promote better understanding of health and the forces that affect it. The tool, found at www.healthlandscape.org, brings together various sources of health, socio-economic and environmental information in a convenient, central location to help answer questions about and improve health and healthcare.

With HealthLandscape, users can upload and geocode large amounts of data quickly and easily. They can then combine their data with publicly available data sets, including regional criminal justice, economic, education, healthcare and census data. HealthLandscape can then be used to create maps, view tables, discover community characteristics and share information with health professionals, policy makers, and legislators.

"HealthLandscape plays a significant role in broadening the opportunity for a much wider array of users to work with, display, share and benefit from community health data," said Andrew Bazemore, assistant director of the Robert Graham Center, American Academy of Family Physicians. "Policy makers think spatially. They look at maps and understand health in terms of their constituents in a way that simple tables do not permit. With HealthLandscape, those that serve the cause of improving the health in their communities will be able to use maps to better understand local issues and have the data needed to make more informed health policy decisions."

The process of data acquisition, processing and mapping involves a significant investment in technology, time and training that can be prohibitive. HealthLandscape removes these barriers, providing everyone access to a powerful information management display tool that also complies with HIPAA data sensitivity requirements. In the past, if clinicians, administrators, policymakers and advocates needed to map their data, they would hire a geographic information system (GIS) expert or spend tens of thousands of dollars for software and hours of personnel time to do it in-house. HealthLandscape allows users to create custom maps in just minutes.

"Most never thought something like HealthLandscape could be done, and at the start of its development, we found nothing on the market that would allow people to easily interact with and map large amounts of health data. HealthLandscape lets people become more involved in and better educated about the health of our communities," added Pat O'Connor, vice president and COO of The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati. "It is important to note that HealthLandscape and the organizations behind it are not for-profit enterprises. People whose interests lie in the greater good conceived of and developed HealthLandscape. Our focus remains on enabling a wider audience to use and benefit from easily accessible community health data in order to improve health and health policy."

HealthLandscape is online at www.healthlandscape.org.

About the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati

The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati is an independent foundation dedicated to improving the health of the people of the Cincinnati region. The Foundation awards grants to non-profit and governmental organizations for selected health programs and activities in Cincinnati and 20 surrounding counties in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Since its inception in 1996, the Health Foundation has invested over $100 million to support local healthcare programs that address the objectives of the Foundation's four focus areas and general community health. For more information please visit www.healthfoundation.org.

About the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP)

Founded in 1947, the AAFP represents more than 93,000 physicians and medical students nationwide. It is the only medical society devoted solely to primary care. Nearly one in four of all office visits are made to family physicians. That is 215 million office visits each year -- nearly 48 million more than the next medical specialty. Today, family physicians provide the majority of care for America's underserved and rural populations. For more information please visit www.AAFP.org.

Contact Information: Contact: Christine Mulvin 513-458-6621