For elected officials to best represent constituencies they serve, information must be presented and analyzed for the entire geographic extent of their constituency. Health indicators are often collected and reported at census geographies, or other units that do not conform to constituency boundaries. To address this lack of health data being reported at policy relevant geographies, the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies Geographic Insights team (GeoInsights) has been applying areal and population apportioning methods to create “crosswalks” between geographies at which health data is reported and policy relevant constituency boundaries.  In India, data on hundreds of key developmental indicators such as child malnutrition that formulate policies and interventions are routinely available for the administrative units of districts but not for the 543 parliamentary constituencies (PC) or 4,121 assembly constituencies (AC) that have elected officials in national and state government, respectively.  The map below displays results of the GeoInsights "crosswalk" from district level low birth weight data to parliamentary constituencies.

Image source: GeoInsights fact sheet (https://geographicinsights.iq.harvard.edu/indiapcfactsheet)

In the United States, the GeoInsights team has applied the apportioning / crosswalk methodology from county level opioid prescription rates and COVID-19 cases to U.S. Congressional Districts.

Image source: https://geographicinsights.iq.harvard.edu/coviduscongress

Investigator:  S V Subramanian, Social and Behavioral Science, HSPH

CGA Research Staff:  Jeff Blossom, Wendy Guan, Ben Lewis, Rinki Deo, Lex Berman, Xiuyuan Zhang, Smruti Naik.