The Representative Population Generator web application was built by Bayes Impact in partnership with California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC). The application generates representative population points for the State of California based on United States Postal Service (USPS) mailing addresses and Census data.
There are many potential applications for this data, but the primary intent for this project is to assist health and policy analysts at the DMHC in measuring the network adequacy of health plans. Network adequacy is a measure that ensures health plans have enough physicians, hospitals, clinics, and other providers to allow plan enrollees access to the right doctor within a reasonable distance from home or work. The representative population points generated by the application will be used to calculate the distance and travel time for enrollees to access health care services. The specific time and distance standards in the state of California are dictated by the Knox-Keene Act.
This application is a critical component in helping the DMHC protect consumers’ health care rights and monitor the compliance of health plans representing over 25 million people in California.
[Link to App] (Currently optimized for Google Chrome.)
The web app generates and displays representative points for where people live and work in a given service area. The points generated by the application are sampled from existing addresses registered by the USPS (more on data sources here). Service areas are defined as ZIP Code/County pairs.
Users can specify multiple service areas by either uploading a CSV of valid counties, ZIP Codes or both, as well as by using the provided dropdown menus. Users can also specify the density / distribution of points they wish to generate. In other words, this is the maximum allowable distance between any address and its nearest represeentative point. The range of options includes 0.5 miles, 2.5 miles, and 5 miles, with 0.5 miles representing the densest distribution. Data points can be viewed either as a table or visualized on a map. Users can also download the data as a CSV, to be used for subsequent analysis, such as calculating time and distance from health providers.
The methods and algorithms used in this web app are open-sourced to: (1) foster transparency in government software and analyses used for regulation, and (2) act as a useful model for other governments, research groups, or individuals who wish to implement a tool of this nature.
Frontend is built on react.js and backend is built on Flask microservices (http://flask.pocoo.org/). We encourage contribution from developers. If you would like to contribute, follow the instruction on the this document.
The Representative Population Generator web application is released under the Apache License 2.0.