Blog Posts

Special thanks to Adena Bowden for co-authoring this post. This past Friday (October 28, 2022), we continued our twelve-week virtual data literacy series, “Data Literacy for Data Stewards,” with a conversation about stigmatization in data. Our goals for the workshop were to learn about the impacts of territorial stigmatization, and work together to create practices we can adopt to de-stigmatize c...

THANKS FOR ADENA BOWDEN FOR CO-AUTHORING THIS POST.   LAST FRIDAY (OCTOBER 21, 2022), WE CONTINUED OUR TWELVE-WEEK VIRTUAL DATA LITERACY SERIES, “DATA LITERACY FOR DATA STEWARDS,” WITH A DISCUSSION ON DATA DIVIDES AND MISSING DATA. OUR OBJECTIVES FOR THE WORKSHOP INCLUDED: UNDERSTANDING WHY DATA IS MISSING AND THE POWER INHERENT IN DECISIONS ON WHAT IS CAPTURED IN DATA AND WHAT ISN’T; DISCUSSI...

SPECIAL THANKS TO ADENA BOWDEN FOR CO-AUTHORING THIS POST. ON FRIDAY (OCTOBER 14, 2022), WE KICKED OFF THE INITIAL COHORT OF OUR NEW TWELVE-WEEK VIRTUAL DATA LITERACY SERIES, “DATA LITERACY FOR DATA STEWARDS.” WE CREATED THIS SERIES BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT MORE AND MORE PEOPLE THAT WE WORK WITH ARE SEEING THE HARMS, CHALLENGES, AND INJUSTICES THAT SOMETIMES RESULT FROM THE USE OF DATA AND TECHNO...

FUNDING PROVIDED THROUGH THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION’S “PATHWAYS TO ENABLE OPEN-SOURCE ECOSYSTEMS” PROGRAM WILL BE USED TO DEVELOP A PLAN TO STRENGTHEN THE CKAN ECOSYSTEM Transparency is a necessary element enabling people to hold their leaders accountable, and is essential if governments hope to build trust with the public. Since 2006, CKAN has been a critical resource enabling public agenc...

INTRODUCTION ALLEGHENY COUNTY RECENTLY MADE TWO NOTABLE DATASETS RELATED TO HEALTH AVAILABLE AS OPEN DATA. ALLEGHENY COUNTY IS ABLE TO ACCESS DATA THROUGH THE PENNSYLVANIA VITAL STATISTICS DATABASE. THE COMMONWEALTH’S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH COLLECTS DATA ON BIRTHS AND DEATHS BY PLACE OF RESIDENCE FOR ALL OF THESE EVENTS IN PENNSYLVANIA.  BIRTHS OCCURRING OVER A FIVE-YEAR PERIOD WERE GROUPED TO SMO...

INTRODUCTION We’ve been asked to create measures of communities that are “walkable” for several projects. While we acknowledge that there is no standard definition of what makes a community “walkable,” and the definition of “walkability” can differ from person to person, we thought developing an indicator that explores the total length of available sidewalks and public staircases relative to the ...

WE’RE NOW INTO THE 22ND MONTH OF THE PANDEMIC, AND IT IS BECOMING MORE-COMMON FOR PEOPLE TO HAVE EXPERIENCED MULTIPLE COVID-19 INFECTIONS. THE PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH (DOH) RECENTLY MADE SOME CHANGES TO THE DATA FEED PROVIDED TO THE ALLEGHENY COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT MAKING IT POSSIBLE TO IDENTIFY CHARACTERISTICS OF PEOPLE EXPERIENCING A COVID-19 INFECTION.  AFTER SOME DATA WRANGLING O...

We’ve been thinking about community indicators quite a bit lately thanks to several current projects and recent data requests we’ve received. As part of this work, we recently pulled property transactions for one and two unit properties (Note #1) shared by Allegheny County, and linked them with property assessment data to append property characteristics to each sales record. All of these datasets ...

Air pollution in Pittsburgh has come a long way since the days when smoke could blot out the midday sun. Yet for many in the region, clean air remains a concern. Following the Christmas Eve fire at Clairton Coke works, the Allegheny County Health Department approached CountyStat about developing a new dashboard to make the department’s hourly air quality data more accessible to the general public....

We at the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center have been working in partnership with the Pittsburgh Parking Authority and the City of Pittsburgh to shed light on how people in Pittsburgh use on-street meters and surface parking lots operated by the Authority. Developing a better understanding of how people park can help support efforts by the City and Authority to set rates based on demand. H...