“Health disparities are differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of diseases and other adverse health conditions that exist among specific population groups in the United States.”

(NIH, 1999).

ImIndiana is an interactive easily available and adaptable, interactive, website that was created to promote the analysis of health disparities within the context of physical, built, and social environments. This web portal is dedicated to creating an interactive, user friendly, portal that uses web-enabled geographic information system technology to integrate county-level, socio-economic, demographic and health outcomes data, with tools to integrate and analyze it. This website seeks promote public participatory geographic information systems (PPGIS) as process of engaging academic and community partners in the development, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of health disparities research. This web portal provided access to health outcomes and environmental data at a state, county, and sub-county level. This site is an evolving site; as more data become available we continue to update the site. Our goal is to provide data for the period beginning in 1990 to present.

The web portal enables the integration of data for six major areas of health disparities including: Cancer, HIV/AIDS, Infant Mortality, Intentional and Unintentional Injury, Cardio-Metabolic Disease (e.g. diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, and obesity), and Mental Health/Substance Abuse.; data on the natural environment (e.g., air, food, soil, water, vegetation, and, toxins), built environment (e.g., zoning, land use, growth, preservation, and development), social environment (e.g., US Census, community assets, and risk factors) with interactive, user-friendly, tools (e.g., calculate rates, chart outcomes, and generate maps) based on user defined criteria.