Summer Site Update: New Data, New Design!

The City Health Dashboard is excited to announce this summer’s release! This month, we updated the website’s design, data for 18 metrics, and city demographic data. Read on to learn more about these updates.

Redesigned Homepage

You may notice a new look on the Dashboard! Our recent website update, live on July 14^th, reflects our ongoing commitment to centering users’ input in the continued development of the Dashboard.

The changes we've made are more than a visual refresh. We’ve updated the layout and design of the homepage, side menu, visual icons, and metric detail page. Check out this blog, which walks through the changes and the thinking behind them.

New Years of Data

This release introduces new years of data for 18 metrics. Updated metrics include 12 metrics from the American Community Survey, now with data through 2024. We’ve also updated three monthly metrics: Air Pollution - Ozone and Air Pollution - Particulate Matter through December 2025, and Unemployment - Current, City-Level through April 2026.

See the table below for a full list of metrics with updated data:

Updated Demographic Data

City Demographic Data

We provide demographic data for every city available on the Dashboard. This includes city and census tract-level breakdowns of race and ethnicity, percent foreign-born, and age. In this update, we’re excited to share that these data have now been updated to reflect 2024 estimates.

Timely demographic data helps leaders and communities better understand who lives in their cities’ neighborhoods. Explore your city’s updated demographic data on the City Overview page.

In addition to accessing this data on the City Overview Page, you can download these data from our Access Dashboard Data page for further exploration.

Metric Demographic Data

Another highlight of this release is new or updated demographic data for specific metrics, including Children in Poverty, High School Completion, Park Access, Unemployment, and Uninsured.

We’ve expanded the demographic data for these metrics by breaking out the Other group into two populations: American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) and Two or more races. Additionally, Park Access now includes age breakdowns for the first time. Learn more about the changes to demographic data below.

Compare Cities

The Compare Cities feature allows users to filter to find comparable cities based on population demographics, including by race and ethnicity groups. Now, users can also filter by the percent of the population that is American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AN). This feature update adds visibility to cities with significant portions of their populations identifying as AI/AN.

More Details on Data Updates

Breaking out American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Data

Alongside other ongoing efforts to expand demographic subgroup data availability for Dashboard cities, the 2026 summer release includes new city-level demographic data on AI/AN populations for some metrics. Expanded demographic group data are available on the Demographic Detail page of the Dashboard for every city with sufficient data, for the following four measures: Children in Poverty, High School Completion, Park Access, Unemployment, and Uninsured. Users can also find new information on the website about how the data sources we use collect race and ethnicity data, and how the Dashboard defines race and ethnicity groups.

The Dashboard acknowledges the unique limitations of federal data on AI/AN populations. The Dashboard largely uses data from federal sources. Racial misclassification and restrictive inclusion criteria, such as only including single-race individuals, result in the undercounting of AI/AN individuals in some federal datasets. The Dashboard is working to provide more inclusive definitions.

To learn more about Indigenous-led data efforts and data sovereignty principles, explore the Tribal Epidemiology Centers, the Urban Indian Health Institute, and the U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network.

Census Race Definition Change

To better reflect how individuals identify racially and ethnically, the Census changed the way it categorized race beginning in 2020. These changes improved the Census’s ability to capture complex identities, but it also means that data from 2020 onwards are not directly comparable to data in prior years that used different categorization methods.

As a result of this change, some people are assigned to different race groups before and after 2020. This change most highly impacts the Two or more races group. Please note: there may be changes in estimates over time due to this administrative change that do not necessarily reflect changes in populations. Please reach out to [email protected] with any questions.

Removing the Credit Insecurity Index

The Dashboard has presented a metric called Credit Insecurity Index which reflected limited credit access at the community level. Although this metric provides an important marker of a community’s financial health, it has not been possible to update the underlying data since 2020. Therefore, in the spirit of offering the timeliest possible data, and after careful consideration, we decided to remove the Credit Insecurity Index from the website. We welcome user feedback about this change; please email us at [email protected].

From Voter Turnout to Voter Participation

The Dashboard recently decided to change the name of its Voter Turnout metric to Voter Participation to more accurately reflect what the metric measures: voter participation as a measure of social cohesion. Voter turnout is a phrase that many are already familiar with, and for which there are other available datasets, and it refers to the number of people who voted in the last election in a specific location. Voter participation more accurately reflects our metric that measures whether people voted, as a reflection of how actively engaged they are in their communities.

Crosswalk Labs Methodology Change

CO2 Emissions (Per Capita and Census Tract Average).

Due to methodological updates from Crosswalk Labs, we have updated all years of data for CO2 Emissions - Per Capita and CO2 Emissions - Census Tract Average (2010-2025). Users may notice changes between previously accessed data and what is currently available on the site. We advise against comparing these updated metric estimates to estimates you may have previously downloaded or used in the past.

Missing Data for Unemployment – Current, City-Level

Please note that due to the government shutdown in October 2025, the Dashboard is unable to present data on monthly unemployment for that month.

Connect with Us

Join us on Tuesday, August 11^th at 3pm EST for our next Virtual Office Hours. The Dashboard team will present on the summer 2026 release, describe the new data, and answer any questions. Register here today.

If you have any specific questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected] to learn more.