We are taking a big picture view of childhood obesity and are asking student teams to come up with ways to visualize data related to causes, trends, disparities, consequences of, and/or solutions related to childhood obesity in communities.  The goal is to help community organizations (e.g., coalitions, health departments, nonprofits) better understand, track, communicate, and address this complex public health problem. 

Here are some resources to help you think about the problem of childhood obesity broadly: link

You can find data sources data guides here: link Data is available at different levels of aggregation (e.g., state, county, school district).  You are welcome to work at any level of aggregation that you choose.

Visualizations can be static or interactive ways of displaying data (interactive is preferred).  You are welcome to write your own programs using R, R Shiny, Python or other programming language, or you can use existing programs like Tableau, ArcGIS, or Excel to create visualizations. 

Here is more information about prizes and what we are looking for in winning submissions: link

And here are the submission guidelines event rules: link

There will be workshops throughout the week to help you think through your approach and gain programing and visualization skills.  Please see the workshop schedule here: link

Thank you for entering the VizAthon – we can’t wait to see what you create!!