Name: Deathly Dataviz: How public health dashboards can backfire
Start: 2025-01-09T18:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-01-09T20:00:00+01:00

***"..., 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.

Federica Gazzelloni

R-Ladies Global

Rafaela Lucas

R-Ladies Rome

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RConsortium

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[Eli Holder](https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliholder/) is a data designer, researcher, and leading expert on equitable, ethical, and effective information design. Eli's design practice, "3 is a pattern" ([3iap](https://3iap.com/)), specializes in psychologically impactful data visualization. 3iap partners with clients on design, research, and development projects, as well as consulting, training, and workshops. 

Eli's research and writing focus on the intersection of social psychology and data communication, looking at the not-quite-rational ways that data can reflect and influence people's attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and emotions. His most recently published study ("[Must Be A Tuesday](https://3iap.com/mbat)"), examines the health and health equity implications of visualizing mortality risk across different racial groups in the United States. 

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Deathly Dataviz: How public health dashboards can backfire

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