CalSHARE Data Hub

California Safety, Health, Resilience and Equity (CalSHARE) Data Hub provides current health and safety insights to better understand strengths and challenges in local communities across California. CalSHARE brings together data from 20+ sources to allow state and local practitioners and other data users to view over 80 indicators of health, safety, and wellbeing at the neighborhood, county, and state level.

The platform was developed through a partnership between the California Department of Public Health's Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health, with funding provided by the Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) Program through the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. The project addresses the critical need for locally-relevant data to support evidence-based violence prevention and health equity initiatives across California's diverse communities.

The interface features two distinct data exploration pathways designed to accommodate different analytical approaches. The "Explore Data by Geography" pathway is ideal for users familiar with a specific region who want to compare it to other parts of California, while the "Explore Data by Indicators" pathway enables users to understand relationships between various indicators across different geographic regions. This dual-pathway architecture ensures that both place-based practitioners and policy researchers can efficiently access the insights they need.

From a technical perspective, CalSHARE represents a sophisticated implementation of modern web mapping technologies. The platform leverages vector tiles and dynamic data visualization to seamlessly handle the complex relationships between multiple data sources and three distinct geographic scales—census tract, county, and state levels. Interactive hotspot mapping reveals geographic patterns of health disparities through choropleth visualization, while percentile rank graphs enable rapid comparisons between communities. The responsive design, optimized for desktop viewing, ensures consistent functionality across different screen sizes and browsers.

Data indicators span five critical domains: protective environments, child and youth development, economic security, leadership for women and gender diverse people, and community leadership and engagement. These domains represent the prioritized strategy areas of CDPH/IVPB's violence prevention programs, reflecting evidence that violence in its multiple forms is interconnected and that community safety promotion should target shared risk and protective factors. Each indicator includes detailed metadata, source citations, and contextual information to support proper interpretation and application.

The platform's architecture prioritizes data transparency and scientific rigor. While direct data downloads are intentionally unavailable due to data use agreements with various sources, comprehensive citations enable users to access publicly available datasets independently. Regular updates ensure practitioners work with current information, with subscribers receiving notifications about new data releases through the platform's announcement system.

Funded by the California Department of Public Health, CalSHARE continues to evolve based on practitioner feedback. The platform serves as a model for state-level public health data integration, demonstrating how thoughtful design and robust technical infrastructure can transform complex datasets into actionable insights for community health improvement.