title: SalHUD--A Graphical Interface to Public Health Data in Puerto Rico.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This paper describes SalHUD, a prototype web-based application for visualizing health data from Puerto Rico. Our initial focus was to provide interactive maps displaying years of potential life lost (YPLL).
  
  
  METHODS
  The public-use mortality file for year 2008 was downloaded from the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics website. Data was processed with R, Python and EpiInfo to calculate years of potential life lost for the leading causes of death on each of the 78 municipalities in the island. Death records were classified according to ICD-10 codes. YPLL for each municipality was integrated into AtlasPR, a D3 Javascript map library. Additional Javascript, HTML and CSS programing was required to display maps as a web-based interface.
  
  
  RESULTS
  YPLL for all municipalities are displayed on a map of Puerto Rico for each of the ten leading causes of death and for all causes combined, so users may dynamically explore the impact of premature mortality.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This work is the first step in providing the general public in Puerto Rico with user-friendly, interactive, visual access to public health data that is usually published in numerical, text-based media.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, San Juan 00936, Puerto Rico. humberto.ortiz@upr.edu.
authors.forename: Humberto G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Ortiz-Zuazaga
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, San Juan 00936, Puerto Rico. racorretjer@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Arce-Corretjer
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Puerto Rico, Bayamón Campus, Bayamón 00959, Puerto Rico. juan.sola@upr.edu.
authors.forename: Juan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Solá-Sloan
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan 00936, Puerto Rico. jose.conde1@upr.edu.
authors.forename: José G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Conde
mesh_terms: D002423:Cause of Death; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D009026:Mortality; D011634:Public Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011647:Puerto Rico; D012984:Software
keywords: Javascript; health data; visualization