Data Dive: Radon
Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the US. Learn more about accessing and interpreting radon data in the Map Room and Community Needs Assessment in this Data Dive.
2025 Year in Review
Access to reliable data became more important than ever before in 2025. As questions rose around data availability, updates, and reliability, SparkMap remained your trusted data provider. We are proud to continue this mission into 2026 and partner with you on supporting the change you’re making in communities around the country. The year ahead will…
Data Dive: Federally Qualified Health Centers
In this blog we dive into six new indicators about Federally Qualified Health Centers in the SparkMap Community Needs Assessment.
Selecting Data for a CHNA: Five Best Practices
Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs) have evolved in many ways over the last ten years. We’re excited to share 5 best practices we’ve learned for selecting CHNA data.
Decoding Commuting Distance Patterns
Introduction Commuting has important implications for our health, environment, and economy as discussed in a previous blog post. To follow up on the previous piece, this post further explores commuting patterns by taking a closer look at commuting distances. We will highlight some new analyses and modeling done on publicly available commuting data to learn…
Data Dive: Diabetes Prevalence
In this Data Dive we explore diabetes prevalence data in the SparkMap Map Room and Community Needs Assessment. Dive in to learn more!
Data Dive: Air Quality
Learn more about two of SparkMap’s Air Quality data layers in this Data Dive. We explore both Ozone Levels and Particulate Matter (i.e., small particles in the air) as two indicators of community health.
Where’s the Food? Part Two: Food Retailer Distribution Rates
This blog is part two of our Where’s the Food series. Our last blog, Where’s the Food? Part One: Finding and Using Data on Specific Food Retailer Locations discussed SparkMap’s USDA data on supermarket and farmer’s market locations. Now we’re shifting the focus to finding and utilizing data on food distribution rates. We will discuss: …
Measures of Race and Ethnicity: A Look at Shifting Demographics
In this SparkMap Webinar, we provide informative definitions of race and ethnicity and discuss the importance of population change to community development. We also highlight the changing landscape of race and ethnicity in the United States and why it’s important. We wrap up by demonstrating how to find and interpret demographics information in both the…
Digging Deeper into the NCCPI 3.0
The National Commodity Crop Productivity Index 3.0 is an invaluable tool to evaluate soil productivity. In this blog we discuss background information on the index, reasons to use it, and how to interpret it in our Map Room.