Mental Health in NCT

This interactive dashboard explores mental health outcomes across 24 North Central Texas counties, allowing users to switch between measures (Frequent Mental Distress, Crude Suicide Rate, Suicides, and Drug Overdose Deaths) and instantly see how patterns shift by year and county. The map highlights regional disparities, while the trend chart reveals whether a county’s mental health indicators are improving, worsening, or fluctuating over time. KPI callouts help benchmark each county against the best-performing county for the selected view. Year coverage varies by measure (Frequent Mental Distress/Overdose: 2016–2025; Suicide metrics: 2020–2025), and some county-year values may be missing/suppressed, particularly for smaller counties.

Demographics and what each measure represents

All measures are reported at the county level (not individual-level) and reflect population health outcomes:

  • Frequent Mental Distress (raw value)
    Typically a percentage of adults reporting poor mental health on many days in the past month (an indicator of ongoing mental strain).
  • Crude Suicide Rate
    A rate (commonly per 100,000 population) that helps compare counties of different sizes.
  • Suicides (raw value)
    The count/number of suicide deaths recorded for the county/year.
  • Drug Overdose Deaths (raw value)
    The count/number of overdose deaths recorded for the county/year.

How to read the dashboard (what each section is telling you)

  • MH Map (top): A regional heatmap showing which counties are higher or lower for the selected measure and year. Darker shading generally signals higher values.
  • MH Trend (bottom): A time series for the selected county so you can see direction and volatility (spikes, drops, or steady patterns).
  • KPI tiles (right):
    • KPI AVG = the selected county’s value for the selected year (your “headline number”).
    • KPI BEST = the lowest county (best-performing) for that measure/year.
    • (If you also have Worst elsewhere, that’s your “highest county” benchmark.)

Key insights you can safely state (and they’ll stay true even when filters change)

  • Strong geographic differences: The map consistently highlights that mental health outcomes are not evenly distributed—some counties cluster at higher levels while others remain lower.
  • Urban vs. rural pattern often shows up: Smaller/rural counties can appear higher or more volatile for rate-based outcomes (like suicide rate), while larger counties often look more stable year-to-year.
  • Rates vs. counts matter:
    • Rates (Crude Suicide Rate) are best for fair comparisons across counties.
    • Raw values (Suicides / Overdose Deaths) are more influenced by county population size (large counties can have higher counts even if their rate is moderate).
  • Trend line = early warning signal: When a county shows multi-year upward movement (or repeated spikes), it can flag an emerging concern—even if it’s not the worst county in a single year.

Years available (from your Excel file)

Based on the columns in your uploaded dataset:

  • Frequent Mental Distress: 2016–2025
  • Drug Overdose Deaths (raw): 2016–2025 (but with missing/suppressed data in multiple smaller counties)
  • Suicides (raw): 2020–2025
  • Crude Suicide Rate: 2020–2025

Missing data note (important and dashboard-friendly)

Some county-year values—especially for Drug Overdose Deaths and occasionally Suicide rate / Suicides—may be blank for certain smaller counties/years. This commonly happens when counts are very small or suppressed for reliability/privacy, so blanks should be interpreted as “not reported/available”, not “zero.”