Information about health outcomes and community conditions is more abundant and accessible than ever before. The ability to tie a piece of information to a specific geographic location means that Extension practitioners from every discipline now have access to data by zip code, census tract, or neighborhood. For many decades, much of this data was only available by county. These advances in data science now allow Extension personnel to assess community assets and needs at a more granular level and focus their work on the people and communities of greatest need. Such precision approaches to needs assessment and, ultimately, programming can save money, increase the likelihood of producing measurable results, and create more manageable workloads for county-based Extension personnel.

For a curated list of top health data sites (many of which include data down to the census tract or zip code level, please visit https://health.extension.org/d...esources/data-sites/