It is essential that HRSA, Bureau of Primary Health Care, and health center organizations have access to tools and data that can assist in evaluating the geographic reach, penetration, and growth of the Health Center Program and its relationship to other federally linked health resources. The UDS Mapper was launched in 2010 as a free, publicly available mapping tool intended to help users better understand where federally funded health centers currently serve, where gaps in the safety net might exist, and which neighborhoods or regions might hold the highest priorities for health center expansion. Today the UDS Mapper is a required tool when applying for funding through the Health Center Program and has more than 10,000 registered users.
The UDS Mapper is driven primarily by data within the Uniform Data System (UDS). It is built from ZIP Code level Health Center Program reporting data found within the UDS that are paired with other sources of population data. The original functionality of the UDS Mapper was based on formulas and reporting methods developed by John Snow, Inc. for grantee service area analyses requested by the Bureau of Primary Health Care.
Since 2010, the UDS Mapper has changed based on user feedback. Still completely free, users can now add their own data to the UDS Mapper, add a wealth of social determinants of health information from the HealthLandscape Community HealthView Tool, visualize areas of need based upon interactive, neighborhood level data in the Population Indicators tool and much more.
The UDS Mapper project is funded by HRSA and coordinated by the Robert Graham Center, and the tool itself is part of our larger HealthLandscape online mapping platform.