The geopolitics of COVID19, visualising Barbie and the historical efficacy of vaccines
This is Edition #5 of The Datavist, a weekly newsletter highlighting great instances of data-driven storytelling in the humanities. Compiled and commented upon by Darragh Murray.
Welcome to February everyone and also to edition five of The Datavist newsletter. I hope you're all keeping well.
I've been keeping busy with both my day-to-day work but also attempting to complete a few little projects here and there in my spare time - mainly around learning Python but also completing the first Viz For Social Good project which, this month, is examining the work of Fondation Follereau Luxembourg - an NGO who do aid work in Africa.
If you're unfamiliar with Viz for Social Good, it's a social data project where volunteers use their analytical and visualisation skills to raise awareness for socially positive causes. If you've got such skills, I highly recommend you get involved.
This week we've got an interesting take on the geopolitical dimensions of the COVID19 pandemic. We also take a look into Barbie's professional career and dip into the historical efficacy of vaccines. Let’s jump right in.
Covid performance index: Deconstructing pandemic responses
Alyssa Leng, Hervé Lemahieu, Brody Smith | Lowry Institute | 28 January 2021
My day to day job currently involves many analyses of how countries are (and have) reacted to the pandemic. This work often includes looking at the various health, economic and the geopolitical dimensions of COVID19. So when a colleague sent me a link to the latest Lowry Institute interactive data story, it was definitely something I was keen to absorb.
This investigation asks "what impact did geography, political systems, population size, and economic development had on COVID-19 outcomes around the world" before delving into a fascinating data-driven story examining systemic factors that determined a country's ability to handle the infectious disease.
The article also reflects on the relative public policy dexterity certain countries exhibited when faced with the challenge of COVID19. This work is indispersed with some neat looking line charts that provide useful context to the analysis.
The Asia-Pacific has dealt with the pandemic remarkably compared to most other geographic regions.
There are many COVID19 data visualisations out there, some that may even cover the same territory as this piece. But I did particularly like how this piece tried to put a geopolitical lens on the pandemic, using various scoring measures to rate different political systems and development stages. I'm not sure if I've seen this type of data collected in one place and published publicly on the web.
It's also really great that the authors detailed their methodology in full at the bottom, which is extremely useful and builds confidence in the visualised content.
Somewhat disturbingly authoritarian political systems have outperformed other methods of government on Lowry’s index.
Now you might look at these and think 'well Darragh, these are just a series of line charts, there isn't exactly much variety here'. Well, in my view, that does not matter. Data visualisation aims to communicate data effectively. It's a form of communicating evidence, hopefully in a compelling and aesthetically pleasing manner. These charts achieve this beautifully.
If you look under the hood, there is care put into the visuals. The Lowry team uses a refined palette, provide references lines to indicate the averages and useful labelling of axes that guide analyses without necessarily distracting the reader. I personally probably would have ditched the gridlines (the ol' data-to-ink ratio dilemma), but I don't think they're too distracting here. Well done Lowry Institute!
A girl can be anything...even a Barbie
Judit Bekker | Tableau Public | 27 January 2021
Judit Bekker is a bit of a legend in the Tableau data viz community, emerging in the last few years and publishing some breathtakingly beautiful data visualisations that often combine both mindblowing graphic design and outstanding technical command of the Tableau platform.
Judith recently published this fascinating retrospective of possibly the world's most famous fashion doll, Barbie - analysing the doll's employment history by categorising the costumes available for people to dress their Barbie's. Who knew that you were once able to dress a Barbie as a presidential candidate or a chicken farmer!
In the 1960s, Barbie costumes reflected professions such as 'fashion model' or 'stewardess' (though you could get an 'astronaut' costume for Barbie in the mid-60s, presumably due to the high visibility of the US's space program during this time). When we get closer to the turn of the century, we see Barbie being dressed as 'palaeontologist', 'major league baseball player' and even 'US president'!
That what I think is the coolest part of this viz. It provides some historical insight into the changing attitudes to women's role in the workplace over the last seventy years or so, using exciting subject matter (a popular children's toy). Though I acknowledge there is still quite some way to go.
View the visualisation on Judit's Tableau Public portfolio. Also check out her other work, her visualisations are great!
Battling infectious diseases in the 20th century: The impact of vaccines
Tynan DeBold, Dov Friedman | Wall Street Journal | 11 February 2015
This Wall Street Journal interactive dates back to 2015 but is highly relevant in the age of the giant COVID19 vaccination program currently being wheeled out worldwide.
Tynan DeBold and Dov Friedman use a series of heat maps, each representing a specific disease to highlight vaccination programs' impact on case numbers throughout the United States. The results, well, are reasonably conclusive - the diseases typically died out after vaccines were widely used.
Those who know me personally know my fondness for a good heatmap, and I think the examples in the article show them being deployed pretty effectively. The authors have US states on the Y-axis and time on the X-axis. In most instances, we can see the vaccination program's effect through the deliberate use of reference lines.
This is nice and neat and a good example of how useful data visualisation can be when trying to demonstrate causal factors in history.
Lucky Dip
A few other things I’ve liked this week that I didn’t get time to go into in any great detail but wanted to share anyway:
COVID19 and travel restrictions by Hesham Eissa and Lindsay Poulter.
Europe gradual move away from fossil fuels by David ó Cinnéide.
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Wow. I thought this was going to be a small update but grew into a huge beast of a post. Hope you made it through and found it interesting. If you haven’t already, please feel free to subscribe to get each update direct to your inbox each week.
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Thanks again for reading!
Darragh