Grant to help Georgia cities study health and wellness

ATLANTA — Neighborhood Nexus, a free and interactive data resource for people and organizations in metro Atlanta and Georgia, received a $100,000 grant Thursday from the 500 Cities Data Challenge grant. The funds will be used to create a health and wellness toolkit based on Atlanta, Albany, Columbus and Savannah.

The toolkit will measure five social factors that influence health: economic stability, social and community context, education, neighborhood, health and health care, and built environment.

The 500 Cities Data Challenge came about from a partnership between the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The grant encourages people to engage with the 500 Cities dataset — which, according to the CDC’s website, provides “city- and census tract-level small area estimates for chronic disease risk factors, health outcomes, and clinical preventive service use for the largest 500 cities in the United States” — and determine ways to address the social factors that affect health.

The Neighborhood Nexus health and wellness toolkit aims to:

— Benchmark the health and wellness of the four Georgia cities, utilizing the 500 Cities dataset;

— Increase community engagement around public health issues through interactive data visualizations;

— Educate residents about health inequity and provide access to community-specific health tools through workshops, webinars and training videos.

“For many decades in Georgia, health and human services has been organized largely at the county level,” CDC officials said. “The 500 Cities Challenge provides an opportunity to recognize the critical role that cities play when it comes to community health.”