Mapping America's Downtrodden & Uninsured

Civis Analytics has released an Uninsured Census Tract Map to help visualize which census tracts in the United States are the most uninsured.

Civis Analytics was created by some of the veterans behind Obama for America (OFA) Analytics. Civis Analytics want to take some of the lessons learned in analyzing big data to target potential voters and use those lessons solve some of the world’s biggest problems. The Uninsured Census Tract Map was created to help show where the uninsured live and give the people doing enrollment a better sense of where to focus their efforts.

The map includes three base layers, the map tile, population and the uninsured census tract data. It is possible to select any combination of the three layers. If you turn off the population and map layers you can see most clearly which areas have the highest density of uninsured people.


The areas with the highest percentage of the population uninsured seems to co-relate fairly closely to those areas with the lowest median income. The Texas Tribune this week published the 2012 American Community Survey Map.


The Texas Tribune map visualizes median household income levels for each state. A cursory comparison of the two maps does suggest some co-relation between the low levels of median income in north-western and southern states and low levels of insurance.

The Texas Tribune Map also includes a visualization of health insurance levels in each state. This state by state visualization and the Uninsured Census Tract Map both seem to confirm that the highest levels of insurance are seen in the Midwest and in the north-eastern states of the US.