Merck Pharmaceuticals
Uncovering correlations in social and healthcare data to improve HPV vaccination coverage in under-served communities
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
1 month
Team
Josie (Design Lead)
Madison (Brand Design)
Merck's HVP Vaccination Explorer is a geospatial research and analytics tool used by healthcare researchers to better understand the factors that affect vaccination coverage rates.
The insights provided by this tool are also used by marketers to improve awareness and access to information about vaccines in areas with low coverage rates.
Through user research, we learned that researchers used a range of data points to understand why specific communities may have low vaccination rates. Among these reasons are lack of awareness, misinformation, and lack of mobility or access to vaccination sites.
To enable these multi-faceted insights, I designed a map-focused layout that provides quick actions to filter and overlay multiple data sources on the map at once.
Breaking down data
One design challenge was how to present multiple datasets in a way that matches the mental model of researchers.
Through user interviews, I learned that the data could be broken into two categories: qualitative medical data (like sex, age, and infection rates) and qualitative social data (like income, education level, and vaccine site accessibility).
Quantitative medical data is exposed as filters on the left, and dynamic data displays overlaying the map. Qualitative information, also called "social determinants of health", are always visible on the right side, making them easy to cross-reference.
Viewing Vaccine Doses Administered in the state of Connecticut.
Drill-ins & choropleths
Researchers need to view this data at different levels of granularity (state, county, and area code). To support this workflow, I introduced a choropleth visualization. This was useful because it made it easy for researchers to identify under-served areas visually, doubling as a form of heatmap.
By clicking on a cell, researchers can easily drill down to view detailed data about the most underserved areas.
Data overlays
At any point, a user can overlay additional data points, such as Vaccine Administer Locations, to uncover correlations between societal and physical metrics.
Social Determinants of Health Panel
A user can view additional, non-medical factors in the right panel and get an overview of how the selected area and applied filters compare to larger areas, but they can also use the map view toggle to overlay that data directly onto the map canvas, adding yet another layer of possible hidden insights.
Outcomes
COVID-19 meant a necessary change in priorities for Merck, pausing this project before it could be built. Even so, Merck's team sent over some glowing feedback:
Because of the trust we were able to earn with with Merck through the design process, they later returned to kick off several more projects, resulting in upwards of $500,000 of new contracts.