Projects

Iowa’s Extension and Outreach leadership identified the need for a statewide community data infrastructure to support precision funding and targeted education in response to COVID-19. This project utilized the Community Capitals Framework to identify, collect, and spatially map county-level indicators of human, financial, natural, and social assets related to upward economic mobility. Interactive data tools were designed to support Extension leadership in identifying and monitoring the impact of COVID-19 on rural community recovery. Dashboards are intended to be paired with CES administrative files, so leaders can visually identify opportunities to more effectively match resource/programming supports with community needs.

Iowa’s Extension and Outreach program provides resources for communities, businesses, and nonprofits via six help and support hotlines. The use of hotlines has increased dramatically with the onset of COVID-19.  Our team partnered with hotline managers to understand the system architecture, data structure and quality, and past uses of the data generated by the hotlines. Using this information, we piloted interactive dashboards on call topics, outcomes, and emotional content (via sentiment scoring of generated transcripts) to support improved customer service, monitor success, and auto-generate reports so hotline workers can spend more time helping citizens and less time filling out paperwork.

Iowa ranks in the top 10 among U.S. states for binge drinking, costing roughly $635 per person in Iowa.  Understanding who is at risk for excessive alcohol use and where they reside can help Iowa’s Substance Use Bureau better target prevention resources to manage alcohol-related problems. This project identified and spatially mapped the characteristics of heavy daily alcohol users, forecasted alcohol sales by county, and analyzed the prevalence of people who have been involved in car crashes after using alcohol or drugs. Interactive data tools were generated to facilitate decision making by policymakers, public health officials, and extension specialists.

Government programs often develop within agency silos, making it difficult to support ‘whole community’ responses to pressing problems. To combat this issue, the Iowa Linkage to Care Advisory Board was created to embrace cross-agency evidence-based policymaking in statewide prevention, treatment, and public safety response efforts. This project identified, web-scraped, and spatially mapped publicly available data reflecting formal and informal ‘Systems of Care’ that support resilience related to mental health, physical health, education, workforce development, and child care. Interactive data tools and insights catalog and improve awareness of state resources in support of the Board’s ongoing efforts to address systemic change. The goal of the project is to describe the services and resources, that when present in a community, provide the necessary elements to promote the successful recovery process of individuals living and engaging within that community.

Government programs often develop within agency silos, making it difficult to support ‘whole community’ responses to pressing problems. To combat this issue, the Iowa Linkage to Care Advisory Board was created to embrace cross-agency evidence-based policymaking in statewide prevention, treatment, and public safety response efforts. This project identified, web-scraped, and spatially mapped publicly available data reflecting formal and informal ‘Systems of Care’ that support resilience related to mental health, physical health, education, workforce development, and child care. Interactive data tools and insights catalog and improve awareness of state resources in support of the Board’s ongoing efforts to address systemic change. The goal of the project is to describe the services and resources, that when present in a community, provide the necessary elements to promote the successful recovery process of individuals living and engaging within that community.