Thesis1

The Truth about Health Care System in the United States Hobin Lee

Senior Thesis 1 Paul Carlos Fall 2011 PUCD 4205 F CRN: 5339

Thesis Description I will be creating an interactive website/app and print that deals with the comparison of healthcare system to other countries.This is mainly for U.S. citizens. I would like to accentuate the ‘comparison’ component to bring awareness to the U.S. citizens that their healthcare system highly lacks efficacy. I was inspired by Michael Moore’s documentary film “Sicko”, which deals with health care in the United States as provided by profit-oriented health maintenance organizations (HMOs) compared to free, universal care in Canada, the U.K., and France.

Moore contrasts U.S. health care to Canadian care with the experiences of Canadians in hospitals and clinics there. Also from my own experience, I was shocked how this country runs clinics and health care.

One of my inspiration: Michael Moore’s Documentary Film- SICKO

Research/Sketches

The World Health Organization’s ranking of the world’s health systems.

Research/Sketches

Potential Contents: 1. Health Workforce 2. Health Financing 3. Governance and Aid Effectiveness 4. Essential Health Technologies 5. GDP 6. Health Expenditure 7. Overall Goal Attainment 8. Fairness in Financial Contribution

Filter the World Project on the design and interpretation of world statistics.

The animation documents the appearance of the first website visitor of a country during the first month. http://www.theworldasflatland.net/

Research/Sketches

[RELATIVE DATASET] “Absolute figures in the connective world doesn’t give you the whole picture. They are not as true as they could be. We need relative figures that connect to the whole data so that we can see a fuller picture” - David McCandless

What is “Relative Dataset”?

Example: Who really spends the most on their armed forces?

The United States spent $607bn (ÂŁ402 bn) on defence in 2008. Currently engaged in what will likely be the longest ground war in US history in Afghanistan. Harbourer of thousands of nuclear weapons. 1.5m soldiers. Fleets of aircrafts, bombs and seemingly endless amounts of military technology. But is that true? Is that the whole picture?

There are few things to take into consideration to look at the whole picture. In this case, yearly military budget (as % of GDP), active forces such as soldiers (ex. who was the most soldiers?) , number of soldiers per 100,000 people and finally number of reservists and paramilitary per 100,000 people. When all the numbers are added up, the US infantry is ranked a lowly 61st

for size in the world. So is the US an â&#x20AC;&#x153;aggressive, warmongering military machineâ&#x20AC;? obsessed with spending on defence and plumping up its armed forces? Perhaps, the numbers say, not. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/01/ information-is-beautiful-military-spending>

Resources

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Left: WHO website (World Health Organization) Right: Dataset of Health Workforce

Excerpts from Edward Tufte’s “Ths Visual Display of Quantitive Information”

Information Design

Created by Good Magazine, based on the book Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict by Nobel Prize laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes.

Left: Infographics on iPod + iTunes Timeline Right: Infographics on Dreams

by Kailie Parrish

Interactive Infographic: We Feel Fine An interactive piece that deals with the exploration of human emotion, in six movements

by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar

Interactive Infographic: Picturing A Lifetime of Clean Water Access A collaboration between GOOD and Use All Five, in partner ship with Leviâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.