Deathly Dataviz: How public health dashboards can backfire

"..., and what can we do instead."

Can risk ratios be risky? Can visualizing health disparities make them worse? Can our design choices influence these unhealthy backfire effects?

Explore how health dashboards can backfire and what ethical, effective design looks like. Perfect timing as health equity is more important than ever!

In this talk, we’ll explore the social impacts of visualizing inequality and disparities in social outcomes. Drawing on Eli’s IEEE VIS research, we’ll uncover how popular dataviz practices—like bar graphs of group mortality risks—can unintentionally reinforce harmful misbeliefs, with real-world consequences for the populations being visualized.

Through thought-provoking examples and actionable insights, this session will examine how dataviz intersects with social justice. Learn practical strategies to critically evaluate your designs and adopt approaches that amplify equity instead of exacerbating disparities.

Whether you’re a health communicator, social scientist, or data enthusiast, this talk offers valuable insights for anyone working with data about people.

Join us to discover how thoughtful design can transform data into a tool for equity and understanding.