January 1, 2010

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the Center to develop an online simulation tool to explore how health is associated with education, income and other social determinants of health. By manipulating a slider bar, the user can examine how mortality — for the nation or a specific state or county — would be affected if more favorable socioeconomic conditions existed.  

Research and development for the tool included a regression analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Data were compiled in collaboration with the County Health Rankings project, an effort by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

The simulation tool is intended for use by the public and policymakers.  The original version was launched in March 2011. An upgraded version was released in March 2012 and is available at countyhealthcalculator.org.