Introduction to Data Visualization

Picture this: After weeks of research, you’ve produced an expertly crafted, highly polished graphic to summarize your key results. It beautifully displays the exciting findings from your public health study—color-coded trends, intricate details, and data points meticulously laid out. You present it to a room full of local leaders and public health professionals, expecting a wave of excitement and engagement. Instead, the community leaders look puzzled, and the health professionals seem indifferent. Why? The visualization, though impressive, wasn’t suited to either group. What could have been a powerful moment of collaboration becomes a missed opportunity.

In most applications, and especially in public health, tailoring data visualizations to your audience is crucial. In this course, Professor Sullivan and Associate Professor Lora Sabin share real-world experiences on how to avoid this kind of pitfall and offers suggestions as to how to communicate data effectively to different stakeholders, including:

• Principles of data visualization
• User groups and mapping by dimension
• Common tools and when to use each
• Designing and summarizing research data

Developed by: Lisa Sullivan, PhD; Lora Sabin, PhD