Slack: #drug-spending
Maintainers (people with commit access): @dhuppenkothen, @skirmer
Project Description: At its heart, this project seeks to gain a deeper understanding of where and how Medicare tax dollars are being spent. Healthcare is an increasingly important issue for many Americans; the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimate over 41 million Americans were enrolled in Medicare prescription drug coverage programs as of October 2016.
Because healthcare spending is a very real concern, we want to make it real -- not just for people who like reading graphs and looking at statistics, but for everybody. We're harnessing the power of data and modern computing to find answers to the questions people keep asking, and to make those answers easily understandable for anyone who wants to know more; questions like:
In conducting this research, we hope to gain new insights and create a positive impact for healthcare consumers and providers across the United States. For more details, head to our objectives.
If you haven't already, read this first. Then:
We've got (GitHub) Issues. Ready to dive in and do some good? Check out our weekly update and our issues board. Issues are how we officially keep track of the work we're doing, what we've done, and what we'd like to do next. If you'd like to work on something, comment on the issue and/or ping a lead on Slack so we can make assignments.
You can identify different issue types by their tags. If you're new to either Github or data science, pay special attention to:
first-pr: smaller issues to cut your teeth on as a first-time contributorbeginner-friendly: issues suitable for those with less experience or in need of mentorshipTake a look at this list to get an idea of the tools and knowledge we're leveraging. If you're good with any of these, or if you'd like to get better at them, this might be a good project to get involved with!
To download the code and data inside this repository, you'll need Git. Once you've got the necessary tools, open a command prompt and run git clone https://github.com/data4democracy/drug-spending.git to start downloading your own working copy. Once the command finishes, you should see a new drug-spending directory in the current directory's file listing. That's where you'll find it!
thing?")docs directory for general documentation, including more detailed objectives and (coming soon) a glossary of terms. We'll add other docs there as we go.datadictionaries directory contains an overview of our current available datasets, as well as detailed data dictionaries for each and tips on how to most effectively contribute more data.https://data.world/data4democracy/drug-spending
There are many ways to analyze the data in this repository, but "notebook" formats like Jupyter and R Markdown are the most common. The setup process for these tools is in-depth enough to be outside the scope of this README, so please refer to documentation at the aforementioned links if necessary. If something isn't working quite right for you, that's okay! Continue reading to see how you can reach out for assistance.
If you have questions or you'd like to discuss something on your mind, reach out to us in the #drug-spending channel on Slack. Project leads and maintainers are available for troubleshooting, brainstorming, mentorship, and just about anything else you might need.
.ipynb notebook files).Rmd notebook files)