Central Texas Community Mental Health Surveillance Collaborative
, a project that aims to create an interactive map of mental health data similar to local COVID dashboards. The project, one of 10 chosen from a community project funding request, is being designed by. Villagran says when the pandemic hit in March 2020, she was struck by the simple visual language of COVID dashboards:"There's a lot of data available, but very few of us have the bandwidth to look at it, find it, understand it, and use it every day.
Since the pandemic began, mental health issues have been on the rise in certain communities – including teachers, parents with kids at home, and health care professionals. Villagran saw the need to comprehensively map where issues are occurring and where there are resources nearby."To be very clear, we are not using private health data.
In a press release, Doggett says the map tool will prove useful for"public health planners, school counselors and veterans' assistance groups," but Villagran adds that policymakers especially will benefit from the resources component."There is nothing that I know of that links a need with the resources available to address that need, so you can see those two things happening together in the same community.