CHR&R in Flux: Our Commitment to Public Health Data

We’re all in this together.

At County Health Rankings & Roadmap’s March 11 webinar, over a thousand folks invested in population health across the country learned the 2025 release is likely their last, and the organization will lose their primary funding by the end of next year.

Read the full press release here.

mySidewalk has relied on uploading this data to supplement our own data library in Community Health Assessments, Improvement Plans (CHAs, CHIPs), and more. And just like the public health practitioners tuning in, we were surprised and dismayed to learn such a crucial resource for communities across the country may not be here to stay. 

There’s no question that the likely absence of further data updates from CHR&R will impact our communities. Top of mind are the counties and states whose public health functions are particularly under-resourced, where up to date data is already hard to come by. And we'd be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the wide scale uncertainty introduced by the takedown and partial reinstatement of federal data sources across the board. So where does that leave us?

Two things are evident: 

1. Getting high quality data to track (and transform!) population health is getting more complicated, and
2. People and organizations are already stepping up to preserve data access and think about what comes next in an evolving data landscape
   
   

Where we stand

As we collectively respond to that evolving landscape, here's a recap of what we’ve achieved so far at mySidewalk. First and foremost, our data team is already—and will continue—researching ways to fill existing gaps and build data that’s resilient to the current moment.

Towards that end, let’s check out how mySidewalk currently stacks up with County Health Rankings & Roadmaps data. The table below evaluates all the data indicators provided in the 2025 CHR&R data release—by our count, 285 unique data values—and how well those indicators are represented within mySidewalk’s data library.

We’ve used a qualitative rating—High, Med, or Low—to describe this alignment, based on the breadth, depth, and update frequency of data available in each topic area. In other words, the "Match" score gives you a quick look at where mySidewalk offers strong support today, and where we see opportunity for deeper coverage.

Community Conditions

Population Health & Wellbeing

If you’re the curious type and like to explore data yourself, you can find the mySidewalk Data Catalog here. We're also happy to provide more detail about any of the categories above—reach out to us at hello@mysidewalk.com.

What’s next?

Providing reliable, high quality, and timely data is what we do, and we remain committed to our goal to save you time, stress, and uncertainty. 

So as we prepare for the road ahead, we’ll continue to apply our rigorous standards for data and look for ways we can close gaps previously served by organizations like County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. Checking how our data compares like in the tables above is one of the first steps. Next, we'll be investigating the areas where our data library has a low match with CHR&R. We’re also proactively shoring up our ability to anticipate and respond to new challenges and preserve the data you rely on now and into the future.

Our commitment to you doesn’t change, even as the challenges to the data landscape develop and shift. 

Because this is more than just data.

Data is the rock-solid foundation upon which our data storytelling platform helps you find, visualize, and tell the story of your community all in one place.

Making it easy for you to put data to work identifying opportunities, supporting initiatives, and showing impact is really what mySidewalk is all about. With mySidewalk, you can:

• find and interpret data quickly with Sidekick and CoWrite
• build reports and dashboards
• share them with your community or privately with your internal teams
• win money for grants
• and identify the areas with the greatest opportunity for program interventions that make a difference in the health of the folks who live, work, play, learn, and more in your community

Let’s take Caree Lookabill at Lincoln Trail Health District in Kentucky as an example. She found where community gardens could make the most impact by layering mySidewalk data on food access and chronic disease by ZIP Code. As a result of her work, the District won thousands in grant dollars to build community gardens, establish a school garden program, and create recipe cards to improve access to affordable, nutritious food for the people they serve.

With mySidewalk’s more than 50 data sources, 9000+ indicators, and 16 built-in levels of geography, you can do everything from mapping local insurance access, to exploring data relationships to learn what drives health so your team can transform the story of health in your community.

YOUR DATA JOURNEY IS JUST BEGINNING

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YOUR DATA JOURNEY IS JUST BEGINNING