HANCOCK COUNTY, Ohio — As so much focus has been put on COVID-19 over the last couple of years, the Hancock Public Health Department wants to continue that awareness with other viruses.
Built from the ground up locally, Hancock Public Health has launched a new interactive, online dashboard that lists the active data of all communicable diseases in the county.
Users can click through multiple diseases that are tracked in the Ohio Disease Reporting system, dating back up to five years ago.
"People in the smaller communities around Findlay don't necessarily hear about anything but what's happening in Findlay. So, it's very beneficial to what's going on in the entire county," Hannah Plumley, Epidemiologist at Hancock Public Health, said.
Health Commissioner Karim Baroudi said throughout the pandemic, many people learned how to use public health data to better understand how to react to outbreaks and keep themselves healthy.
The dashboard's purpose, along with providing the latest COVID data, will provide data on all other communicable diseases that impact the area.
And the dashboard offers multiple levels of detail for general understanding, all the way down to disease levels in specific zip codes.
"I can dig as deep as I can into that data, or I just want general information really quick, there's something in the dashboard for everybody." said Baroudi, "It's like a one-stop shop. You have the information on what's going on locally, it will break it down for you by zip code for the population that we serve. Then at the same dashboard, you can go to websites at the CDC level or the Ohio Department of Health level to get more information about that disease."
To assist first-time users with using the interface and understanding the data, Hancock Public Health uploaded a YouTube tutorial video to help you properly navigate the dashboard.