Mapping Broadband Health in America - FAQs
What is the purpose of the map? How will it be used? By whom?
The Mapping Broadband Health in America platform—conceived and conceptualized by the FCC’s Connect2Health Task Force—enables data-driven decision making at the intersection of broadband and health. This first-of-its-kind mapping platform was created to visualize key cross-currents in broadband and health data, which can serve as a valuable tool for both public and private stakeholders. The initial platform first included chronic disease, broadband, and other data, but since its creation, the platform generated significant interest among policymakers, researchers, and innovators, resulting in directives from Congress and requests from various stakeholders to incorporate other health variables and functionalities.
By allowing users to ask and answer questions about broadband and health in any state and county in the United States, the platform provides the information and data that could help drive broadband health policies and solutions.
The mapping platform can be used in various ways—by federal, state and local agencies; tribal governments; and the private sector. It can help inform policy decisions, facilitate interagency coordination, encourage public/private partnerships and investment, and drive innovation—directing resources to areas with overlapping broadband and health needs. Sample uses include:
- Fully-customizable maps can not only show different angles on broadband connectivity, including deployment and subscribership, but how those correspond to various metrics for health behaviors, outcomes and access in urban and rural areas.
- For the FCC and other agencies, the mapping platform can inform and improve policy decisions and facilitate coordination with other federal, state and local entities in identifying solutions to persistent problems in rural and underserved areas. It can also be used to characterize regions and clusters and highlight areas that merit priority focus for funding.
- For the private sector, the tool can focus targeted and precise interventions in the areas of most need and identify opportunities for partnerships and collaborations.
Why did the FCC create the mapping platform?
The Mapping Broadband Health in America platform was created to better demonstrate the value proposition of broadband in health. The goal was to enable users to ask questions about both broadband and health in any county in the United States and to leverage a shared platform that can provide relevant data and help drive meaningful broadband and health policies and solutions. Using the platform, the Task Force has been able to make critical findings about the relationship of broadband and health, observe possible trends, and identify counties that are “double burden,” a term used by the Task Force to identify counties that have both a higher than average health need and below average broadband connectivity—offering a potential basis for prioritization. Indeed, over the years, the platform has become a valuable resource for users to visualize, intersect, and analyze broadband and health data at the national, state, and county levels, providing compelling insights on opportunities and gaps in the connected health space. By using the mapping platform as a foundation for understanding the intersection of broadband and health, policymakers and other stakeholders can chart a concrete path to a more connected and healthier future for all Americans.
What are the new updates to the mapping platform?
The 2024 release expands the available broadband connectivity data to permit more robust visualizations; introduces new maternal health, opioids, chronic disease, and social determinants of health metrics which underlie many of the public health crises facing the nation; and reimagines user interface and functionality. Some highlights:
- While prior releases were necessarily deployed in separate “modules,” the 2024 release consolidates the chronic disease, opioid, and maternal health components into a unified platform, creating a centralized hub for all stakeholders to explore the intersection of broadband connectivity and health.
- The architecture underlying the platform has been redesigned to allow for increased flexibility, permitting the Commission to ingest and visualize new and updated data as it becomes available.
- Users interested in homing in on a particular state or region can now leverage the “Isolate Geographies” feature, hiding other states to allow for more focused and targeted queries.
- The 2024 release is also more intelligent and analytic—dynamic charts and statistics update to the user’s selected geography of interest and radar charts and additional visualizations allow for quick comparisons of the broadband health picture across geographic areas.
- Additionally, the 2024 release includes multiple entry points to the platform, including pre-populated sample maps for new users, while at the same time providing a robust and customized experience for those users who want to delve more deeply into the data.
The platform also includes additional broadband and health variables. Notably, the platform incorporates the most updated broadband data collected from the Commission’s Broadband Data Collection and introduces mobile broadband access data. On the health side, the platform now includes maternal health risk factors like pre-pregnancy or gestational diabetes and hypertension and pre-pregnancy obesity, infant health outcomes like infant mortality rate, low birth weight, and preterm birth. The platform also includes key demographics and social determinants of health data like food insecurity and Social Vulnerability Index.
What are some of the questions the mapping platform can answer?
The mapping platform allows users to explore numerous questions, for example:
- What is the relationship between broadband connectivity and health?
- Where can telehealth and other broadband-enabled solutions be leveraged now to address high maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity in new and novel ways?
- How do rural and urban areas compare on broadband connectivity and health?
- Where do broadband connectivity and maternal health needs coincide?
- What is the broadband picture in maternity care deserts?
- Where are the gaps and opportunities for telehealth, to lock in and increase gains in treating chronic conditions and mental health conditions – many of which are themselves risk factors for maternal health?
- What is the maternal health, chronic disease, or opioids picture in higher vs. lower connectivity areas?
- What does the intersection of broadband and mental health provider shortages show, given the association between mental health and poor maternal health outcomes?
- Where can existing broadband infrastructure be leveraged now – by policymakers, entrepreneurs, or other stakeholders – to help address physician shortages, high levels of maternal health need, or the ongoing opioid crisis?
- Where do broadband infrastructure gaps and poor health outcomes coincide – both at the national and county level – in order to better target and prioritize marketplace solutions and private sector investment?
What broadband and health data sources are used in the platform?
Fixed and mobile broadband data are drawn from the FCC’s Broadband Data Collection (BDC) program (as of December 2022), the FCC’s Form 477 data program (2022), Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) Rural Health Care Commitments and Disbursements program (2018-2023), and the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2016-2020). We focus on four primary dimensions of connectivity: availability (access), subscription (adoption), digital device ownership, and funding (for rural health care facilities). The broadband variables displayed and visualized in the platform were chosen to provide insights into what can be enabled and delivered through the broadband health ecosystem of networks, devices, and applications and to identify exactly where opportunities and gaps exist. These data points include – broadband access, rural broadband access, mobile access, rural mobile access, Internet adoption, digital device ownership, and rural health care funding.
Health data is drawn in part from the 2024 release of the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program, a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin Population Health Initiative. This dataset reflects the most recent data on the metrics of interest from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health Resources and Services Administration, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, among others. Other data sources include U.S. Cancer Statistics Data (Incidence from CDC's National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) and NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program), CDC PLACES and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS), and HRSA, Area Health Resource Files. The data generally reflects four dimensions of health – health outcomes, access to care, quality of care, and risk factors – where broadband connectivity may be used to enable effective and cost-saving interventions. We also include statistics on selected community factors of interest.
Additional demographic data are from the U.S. Census Bureau, among other sources. Learn more about the data and methodology.
Is the FCC's effort to incorporate maternal health data complete?
The FCC is pursuing a multiphase approach. The 2024 release builds upon prior functionality that allowed users to intersect broadband data with key maternal health outcomes (e.g., maternal death rates and severe maternal morbidity rates) and access-to-care metrics as required by the Data Mapping to Save Moms’ Lives Act. Given the necessary data suppression inherent in publicly-available maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity data (which protects individual privacy), the platform now allows users to visualize key maternal health risk factors (including pre-pregnancy or gestational diabetes, pre-pregnancy or gestational hypertension, and pre-pregnancy obesity) which serve as critical indicators for poor maternal health outcomes. Similarly, and understanding that poor infant health outcomes have profound impacts on the mother’s physical and mental health, the platform also includes data on infant mortality rate, low birth weight, and preterm birth. The current release introduces select cancer variables—with additional cancer data to be incorporated in a later version of the platform—including incidence and mortality rates of breast cancer, the most common form of cancer in pregnant and postpartum women.
How do I download the complete dataset?
- Download Nationwide Data: JSON | XML| CSV
- Download All States: JSON | XML| CSV
- Download All Counties: JSON | XML | CSV
What methodology did the FCC use?
We gathered data from a variety of sources that survey and retain continually updated databases related to broadband and health. After compiling the data, we conducted exploratory data analysis to identify clusters and patterns within and across different variables. Our goal was to be able to translate patterns from the data into a geospatial representation, while offering a positive user experience. We hope that users will investigate their own questions about the state of broadband and health. Learn more about our methodology.
Why is the data at a county level as opposed to a city or neighborhood level?
We focus on counties for several reasons: (1) county level data is available across various health (e.g., maternal health, diabetes, obesity, preventable hospitalizations) and connectivity benchmarks, allowing apples to apples comparisons; (2) counties are a discrete geographic unit that can potentially drive broadband economies and local health policy; and (3) counties are the building blocks for publishing many types of data (e.g., economic) and for tracking progress and regional population and economic trends.
Which aspects of connectivity does the map track?
The platform uses data about residential broadband access (deployment) and Internet adoption (subscribership). Access is correlated to the FCC benchmark speeds of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload. Internet adoption measures subscribership at 200 kbps. Mobile access data measures mobile 5G-NR service with speeds of 35 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. The platform also includes data on digital device ownership and broadband funding for rural health care facilities.
How often will the map be updated?
Our plan is to update the map periodically. The latest data update was made to the system in December 2024.
I’m having trouble using this map. Is there someone who can assist?
The Connect2HealthFCC Task Force welcomes your suggestions and feedback as we continue to refine and expand the Mapping Broadband Health in America platform. Please send questions or comments to engageC2H@fcc.gov, with “Mapping” in the subject line.
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