Stories
What the data teaches
The atlas lets you look anything up. These pieces do the opposite: they start from the full matrix — 26 measures × 23,818 ZIP/ZCTA areas — and show the structure that emerges. Everything is precomputed from the same public payloads the atlas serves; every figure is interactive.
Most of ZIP-code health is one axis
57% of variance, one axisRun a principal component analysis on all 26 measures and a single dimension — tracking deprivation and income, not any one disease — explains the majority of the variation between America's ZIP codes.
Read the story →Correlation structureNo measure moves alone
ρ 0.98 food insecurity × transport barriersDiabetes predicts blood pressure. Food insecurity predicts housing insecurity at ρ ≈ 0.97. The 26 measures form tight blocks — and the blocks track demographics more than medicine.
Read the story →Community archetypesThe four health Americas
4 archetypes, 32k ZIP areasCluster ZIP codes on all 26 measures at once and four recognizable kinds of community emerge — comfortable suburbs, young metro strivers, aging small towns, and left-behind communities.
Read the story →The deprivation gradientWhere the gradient bites — and where it doesn't
3.1× teeth lost, most- vs least-deprivedComplete tooth loss is three times higher in the most-deprived tenth of neighborhoods. Binge drinking is the one measure that runs the other way.
Read the story →The wealth gradientThe health premium of wealthy ZIP codes
23/26 measures worse in bottom wealth decileRank ZIP/ZCTA areas by a composite of income, college attainment, home value, ADI, poverty, and unemployment, then compare the richest tenth with the poorest tenth across all 26 health measures.
Read the story →Outcome story · mental healthDistress follows poverty. Diagnosis follows privilege.
ρ -0.35 diagnosis ratio × Black population shareFrequent mental distress tracks deprivation closely; diagnosed depression barely does. The gap between the two — diagnoses per unit of distress — rises with income and falls sharply where more residents are Black.
Read the story →Outcome story · smokingSmoking: deprivation predicts it, culture bends it
ρ 0.8 smoking × neighborhood deprivationNo measure tracks neighborhood deprivation more tightly than smoking (ρ = 0.80). Subtract that prediction and what remains is a map of history: the tobacco belt, Utah, and the casino frontier.
Read the story →All findings are ecological (about places, not people) and based on model-based small-area estimates. Methods, caveats, and reproduction steps are documented on the methods page.