Social and health metrics program garners Charlottesville a National League of Cities Award

The City of Charlottesville’s participation in a project to connect health outcomes and with housing segregation has led to an honor from one of the country’s municipal organizations. 

“Charlottesville’s Office of Social Equity applied to participate in the 2023 National League of Cities’ Capstone Challenge that paired us in a competitive process with an organization called CityHealth Dashboard,” said Deputy City Manager for Social Equity Ashley Marshall. 

CityHealth Dashboard is a program of the Grossman School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health at New York University. The online interface allows anyone to find and compare statistics on dozens of health outcomes ranging from breast cancer deaths to premature deaths, as well as social and economic factors. 

For instance, data from 2022 shows that 16.9 percent of Charlottesville public school students were chronically absent compared to an average of 30 among other cities in the program. 

Marshall said Charlottesville was one of the first small cities to be added to the map in 2022. 

“CityHealth Dashboard’s team actually won the challenge using work that they did not only for the City of Charlottesville but for Houston, Texas, and Rochester, New York, and their work focused on looking at potential connections that historic segregation may have on modern health and economic disparities.” 

Some metrics to note:

• Income inequality in 2021 was measured at a score of -7.4, worse than an average of -2 among dashboard cities. 
• An estimated 25.7 percent of children lived in poverty in 2021, worse than an average of 16.9 percent among dashboard cities. 
• An estimated 55.5 percent of households experience high rent burden, compared to an average of 50.5 percent among dashboard cities.

Take a look at the dashboard here and see what you can find. 

The final report has more details about how Charlottesville used their participation. 

“In response to rising rental costs, the City of Charlottesville, VA City Council recently approved a large investment to improve housing affordability,” reads the report. “The interdisciplinary Capstone team, led by the Deputy City Manager for Racial, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, wanted CHDB support to make the connection between housing and health more tangible to the City Council, in order to guide them as they seek to allocate this funding across the community in a holistic, but data-driven, manner.” 

Houston used their participation to determine if a youth workforce development effort was effective. Rochester used theirs to improve a healthy foods program. 

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