CHR&R in Flux: Our Commitment to Public Health Data

We’re all in this together.

A year ago, County Health Rankings & Roadmaps(CHR&R) shared that their funding would be ending. Now we know how the story unfolded. The 2026 Supplemental Release was their last, and the program is winding down by the end of this year. For the people and communities who relied on it, that's a real loss.

At mySidewalk, this matters to us because access to good data shouldn't depend on whether a single program survives a budget cycle. Communities need reliable information to understand their own health, make the case for funding, and build the kind of future their residents deserve. When a resource like CHR&R goes away, the need doesn't go away with it.

mySidewalk has relied on this data to supplement our own data library in Community Health Assessments, Improvement Plans (CHAs, CHIPs), and more. We understood from the start what losing CHR&R would mean for the communities we serve, so our data team got to work.

There's no question that the absence of further data updates from CHR&R will impact our communities. Top of mind are the counties and states whose public health functions are particularly under-resourced, where up to date data is already hard to come by. And we'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge the wide scale uncertainty introduced by the takedown and partial reinstatement of federal data sources across the board. So where does that leave us?

Two things are evident: 

1. Getting high quality data to track (and transform!) population health is getting more complicated
2. People and organizations are already stepping up to preserve data access and think about what comes next in an evolving data landscape
   
   

Where we stand

So here's where things stand a year later, and what we've done about it.

As we collectively respond to that evolving landscape, here's a recap of what we've achieved so far at mySidewalk. First and foremost, our data team is continuously researching ways to fill existing gaps and build data that's resilient to the current moment.

Towards that end, let's check out how mySidewalk currently stacks up with County Health Rankings & Roadmaps data. The table below evaluates all the data indicators provided in the 2025 CHR&R data release, by our count, 285 unique data values, and how well those indicators are represented within mySidewalk's data library.

Today, mySidewalk's data library covers roughly 70% of the indicators CHR&R provided. Our goal this year is to keep closing that gap, adding indicators until communities have what they need to do their work.

We’ve used a qualitative rating—High, Med, or Low—to describe this alignment, based on the breadth, depth, and update frequency of data available in each topic area. In other words, the "Match" score gives you a quick look at where mySidewalk offers strong support today, and where we see opportunity for deeper coverage.

Community Conditions

Population Health & Wellbeing

These tables reflect mySidewalk data library as of May 2026. Ratings updated from original April 2025 publication.

If you’re the curious type and like to explore data yourself, you can find the mySidewalk Data Catalog here. We're also happy to provide more detail about any of the categories above—reach out to us at hello@mysidewalk.com.

What’s next?

Providing reliable, high quality, and timely data is what we do, and we remain committed to our goal to save you time, stress, and uncertainty. 

Since this post was first published, our data team has been closing the gaps. Here's what we've added to the mySidewalk data library to replace CHR&R coverage:

• CDC WONDER Mortality Rates with Demographic Breakdowns: including motor vehicle death rate, child mortality, infant mortality, and firearm death rate
• Housing Cost Burden: Housing Costs 50 Percent or More of Income, a key indicator of economic stress at the household level
• Earnings Equity: the Ratio of Female to Male Median Earnings (Worked Full Time) and Median Earnings Worked Full Time by Sex, strengthening our pay gap coverage
• Language Access: Primary Home Language Not English, useful for targeting outreach and services to linguistically isolated populations
• Child Poverty Context: Related Children Under 18, supporting deeper analysis of family economic conditions

These additions directly address areas where our original match scores were Low or Med, and reflect our ongoing commitment to maintaining a data library that's resilient to changes in the federal data landscape.

So as we prepare for the road ahead, we'll continue to apply our rigorous standards for data and look for ways we can close gaps previously served by organizations like County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. We're also proactively shoring up our ability to anticipate and respond to new challenges and preserve the data you rely on now and into the future.

Our commitment to you doesn’t change, even as the challenges to the data landscape develop and shift. 

Because this is more than just data.

Data is the rock-solid foundation upon which our data storytelling platform helps you find, visualize, and tell the story of your community all in one place.

Making it easy for you to put data to work identifying opportunities, supporting initiatives, and showing impact is really what mySidewalk is all about. With mySidewalk, you can:

• Find and interpret 9+ billion data points
• Easily build reports and dashboards
• Share your insights either internally with your team or publicly with your community
• Win money for grants
• Identify areas with the greatest opportunity for program interventions that make a difference in the health of the folks who live, work, play, learn, and more in your community

Let’s take Caree Lookabill, Community Epidemiologist, at Lincoln Trail Health District in Kentucky as an example. She found where community gardens could make the most impact by layering mySidewalk data on food access and chronic disease by ZIP Code. As a result of her work, the District won thousands in grant dollars to build community gardens, establish a school garden program, and create recipe cards to improve access to affordable, nutritious food for the people they serve.

With mySidewalk’s more than 50 data sources, 9000+ indicators, and 16 built-in levels of geography, you can do everything from mapping local insurance access, to exploring data relationships to learn what drives health so your team can transform the story of health in your community.

YOUR DATA JOURNEY IS JUST BEGINNING

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YOUR DATA JOURNEY IS JUST BEGINNING