Heatmap Hackathon 2026: Advancing Equitable Access to Burn Care

Challenge Statement: How can data be used to identify and reduce disparities in access to timely, high-quality burn care across different populations and geographies in the U.S.?

Our team explored this question by analyzing geographic access to burn centers, integrating social vulnerability indices, and proposing data-driven recommendations to improve equity in burn care delivery.

This is a collaborative repository for brainstorming and analysis authored by Emmanuel Fle Chea, Feifei Li, Lance Killian McDonald, Josh Spitzer-Resnick, and Shreya Pramanik. The final repository for submission can be found here.

👥 Team 13 Members

Name	GitHub	Role
Emmanuel Fle Chea	@efchea1	Lead Analyst – Distance analysis, SVI integration, Use Case framing
Feifei Li	@fayfayMN	Visualization Lead – Interactive maps, alternative presentation design
Lance Killian McDonald	@mcdonaldlk	GitHub Repo Host, Technical Support
Josh Spitzer-Resnick	@joshspitzerresnick	Geospatial analysis
Shreya Pramanik	@Shreya-bristi	Literature review

📊 Datasets Used

All public datasets are documented in /data/sources.md

Name	Description
NIRD Database (2023)	Hackathon-provided burn care data
CDC SVI 2022	Social Vulnerability Index (county level)
Census Population Estimates 2020–2025	Population data
Rural-Urban Continuum Codes 2023	USDA economic research service
NFIRS	National Fire Incident Reporting System (referenced)

🧠 Key Analyses

• Emmanuel

  • Distance to nearest burn center (population-weighted)
  • Integration with SVI and rurality
  • Composite vulnerability scoring
  • Tele-burn hub recommendations

• Feifei

  • Interactive county-level maps
  • Visual EDA and alternative presentation design
  • Population distribution overlays

• Lance

  • GitHub infrastructure

📈 How to Run the Code

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/mcdonaldlk/HeatmapHackathon.git

2. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Place the NIRD dataset (not included) in /data/
4. Run individual notebooks from /code/[name]/

🏆 Presentation

Our final submission includes:

• a 1-page overview explaining your solution
• a README with your code submission
• a presentation deck (max 10 slides)

📝 License

This project is shared for educational and research purposes under the terms of the hackathon. Data remains the property of its original owners. Code is open-sourced under the MIT License.

🙌 Acknowledgments

Thanks to the hackathon organizers, mentors, and the American Burn Association for providing the data and challenge.

📬 Contact

For questions about this repository, please contact Lance (@mcdonaldlk) or open an issue.

Interactive Maps

• Figure 1i: Burn Center Density By State
• Figure 2i: Burn Bed Capacity By State
• Figure 2i map: Geographic Burn Bed Capacity
• Figure 3i: The Referral Gap
• Figure 3.5i: The Referral Bottleneck
• Figure 4i Telemedicine: Burn Center Density By State
• Figure 5i: The Pediatric Access Gap
• Figure 6i: ABA Verification By State
• Figure 7i: National Equity Priority Map
• Figure 7is: Equity Quadrant - Access Vs Quality
• Figure 7.5i: Distance Paradox
• Figure 8i: Social Demand (Need) - State SVI Average
• Figure 9i: Composite Burn Care Vulnerability Index
• Figure 10i: Population Density vs Distance Burden
• Figure 13i: Modeled Impact of Burn Under-Referral
• Figure 14i: The Burn Care Crisis Narrative
• Figure 15i: Sensitivity Analysis Dashboard