CBSSM seminar “The Visualizing Health Project: In Pursuit of Intuitively Understandable Health Data Graphics" will be held on Feb. 13th, from 3-4:30 p.m.in Room 266C, Building 16, North Campus Research Complex, 2800 Plymouth Road. Featuring: Angela Fagerlin, Ph.D., Co-Director, CBSSM and Associate Professor of Medicine and Brian Zikmund-Fisher, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Health Behavior and Health Education.

Summary: We live in an era of health data. Patients often have direct access to test results, risk estimates, and other data related to their health. Drugs come with information about potential side effect risks which vary in severity and likelihood. People facing particularly complex medical decisions may receive decision aids. Yet, the fact that we have those numbers does NOT mean that people can use them. Visual displays are a key approach to overcoming numeracy deficits and enabling people to make sense of the health data they have.

The Visualizing Health project was a short and highly intense (only 5 months long!) project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation designed to push the envelope both in considering visual designs for communicating health risk data and in developing iterative research approaches for testing them. The project involved a large team combining researchers and staff from both the University of Michigan's Center for Health Communications Research and the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine. The UM team then worked closely on a week by week basis with Thomas Goetz (former editor of Wired magazine) who envisioned the project, Tim Leong (graphic designer, author of Super Graphic), and teams of graphic designers that Tim recruited.

We created 16 distinct visual data display tasks related to health risks, had teams of graphic designers develop display concepts, and iteratively tested these displays using multiple online survey methodologies. The resulting designs and data were then assembled in a project website that included all the images, plus commentary and additional features such as a design "wizard" to help guide users to visual displays that best fit their personal needs.

The CBSSM seminar will provide an overview of the project as well as the visual designs it helped create. We will also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this research approach, what worked well, and what was sacrificed in the name of speed and creativity.