data4democracy/va-open-data

VA-Open-Data

Analysis of publicly available data from the Department of Veterans Affairs

Project Aims

Raise public awareness for veteran related issues

Healthcare and Disability (PTS, TBI, suicide, homelessness, substance abuse) Education, Employment, and Housing (GI Bill, VA home loans)

Improve VA transparency and accountability

The public should be aware how their local VA facilities are performing relative to other facilities around the country. This can promote grassroots efforts and non-profits to fill in the gaps.

Increase utilization of VA, Nonprofit, and Privately offered services to veterans

Many VA services are underutilized because veterans are simply unaware of them (I have personal anecdotes). There are also a plethora of non-profits and private groups offering services to veterans.

Methods

I'm hoping to achieve these aims by creating a gallery of interactive visualizations that can be distributed under the Data for Democracy brand. Our metrics initially will be page views. Later iterations of the project could include a well maintained dashboard for veterans, local governments, and members of the public to utilize.

Gallery

Data Sources

• VA Open Data Portal

Please contribute!

Currently this repository uses python, html and mysql to process data and illustrate findings. I welcome your constructive feedback on code efficacy, readability, and the clarity of findings. Feel free to raise issues or send me an email ([email protected]).

va-open-data's Issues

Check for broken links in "VA Data Inventory" file

There are 2 types of links: "Download URL" and "Access URL"

Organize Available Datasets

Here's a link to look at a large number of available datasets. We want to consolidate into tables.
https://www.data.va.gov/sites/default/files/VA%20EDI%20August%202017.json

Identify state by state datasets

Meta analysis of available datasets

Using @bbrewington's inventory, group files by type, year, category (e.g. healthcare, cemetery) and any other features that might be relevant.

https://github.com/bbrewington/VA-open-data-mysandbox

Describe the veteran population in general

• where are they concentrated?
• what diseases are they prone to?
• what alternative to VA care do they seek?

Compare utilization of VA services to actual population of veterans

Some references ...

@synflyn28's exploration, looks at veteran populations by state ...
https://github.com/synflyn28/D4D-VA-Open-Data/blob/master/notebooks/va_open_data.ipynb

utilization of ptsd treatment by state ...
https://github.com/Data4Democracy/VA-open-data/blob/master/python/plot_ptsd_by_state.py

Identify facility by facility datasets

Aggregate Mental Health Score

• Post Traumatic Stress
• Traumatic Brain Injury
• Suicide
• Substance Abuse
• Generalized Anxiety
• Antidepressant use
• Homelessness

Suicide analysis

See this dashboard ...
https://my.infocaptor.com/dash/mt.php?pa=veteran_suicides_521b8c632d32b

A couple of ideas here ...

• visualize change over time by state
• identify regions with consistently high rates
• identify regions with consistently low rates
• identify regions that have seen substantial increases or decreases

Create Table of VA Locations

Populate with available metrics

Identify datasets organized by year

Identify metrics that are measured year by year.

Demographic Analysis

Following @synflyn28's initial demographic exploration, I have some additional follow up questions ...

• Compare veteran metrics to general population (by state)
• Map regional variation in demographics (by state)
• Identify outliers (see box plots)
• Look for significant correlations

Feel free to add additional questions in the comments

Visualize Clean State Dataset

Visualize clean data for an example state VA data here. Look for interesting patterns using either scatterplots, histograms, or other visualizations.

Create Interactive Map of Per Facility Metrics

Each VA facility in the country has performance and spending data. Veterans and the public should be able to easily assess how their nearby VA facilities are performing.

• Gather available datasets
• Group into relevant categories
• Create interactive map showing facility data compared to other facilities around the country
• Develop intuitive performance indices for public consumption

Create Interactive Map of Statewide Metrics

Veterans and the public should be able to visualize how their state performs relative to other states. This helps guide decisions for how federal money should be allocated.

• Gather statewide datasets
• Group data into relevant categories
• Create comparative visualizations for each state x category
• Highlight regional issues with performance

Education, Employment, and the New GI Bill

Look at the impact of the new GI Bill on the following metrics ...

• education
• employment
• salary

Gather online resources for veterans

Navigating the VA can be challenge for veterans. Many benefits are under utilized because veterans don't know they exist.

• Summarize available VA benefits
• Track their utilization
• Develop strategies for improving utilization

Image hosting

At this time, I see that the README's Gallery has images hosted on

• A collaborator's personal repo
• Dropbox

I think it makes more sense for these to be hosted within the VA-open-data repo---maybe in VA-open-data/img/ or something similar.

Public awareness through engaging visualizations

• create engaging tools for public consumption
• assert the accuracy of our data
• develop a pipeline for real time updates
• track actionable engagement metrics (social media, visits, etc)