2021
AIDS in China: under calm , undercurrents surge
Country/area: China
Organisation: 数社/Insight data
Organisation size: Small
Publication date: 9 May 2020
Credit: Shao Jing-yuan
Project description:
The project analyzed data on the incidence of AIDS from 2004 to 2017 from the National Public Health Science Data Center of China and the National Health Commission. It is found that the number of HIV/AIDS cases in China continues to rise. The HIV infection rate of the elderly is gradually increasing. Geographically, the AIDS epidemic may have adverse consequences for the continuation of some ethnic groups with small populations. The continuous increase in the number of aging infected people make the situation of AIDS prevention and treatment in China severe and full of uncertainty.
Impact reached:
This project was published on Insight data (数社, an independent personal data journalism channel on The Paper). TThe number of page views exceeded 1.72 million.
This project explained to the Chinese public the status and trends of AIDS in China. It enables the public to understand the AIDS challenge faced by minority ethnic groups with small populations and the changes in the pressure of AIDS prevention and control in the process of aging Chinese society. As China makes a lot of efforts in AIDS prevention and treatment every year, honestly speaking, for this data news, it is not easy to determine which law or policy change is directly related to it.
Techniques/technologies used:
tools include: excel ,Rstudio ,googleVis. Also, datawrapper was used for graph. Screen recording tool is used to record video and convert it to gif. Use excel to clean the data. In the visualization part, Rstudio, ggplot2, and googlevis package are used. The animated picture in gif format is drawn with the Googlevis package and recorded as a video for format conversion.
What was the hardest part of this project?
The hardest is the insight into the data. From the geographical distribution of AIDS in China, we are aware of the crisis in ethnic minority groups. From the aging trend of AIDS-infected people, we can see that the aging of the whole society has intensified the AIDS crisis.
What can others learn from this project?
A good data journalism project may not need to be immersed in an obsession with complex technology. It is very important to choose appropriate expression techniques, to use public health scientific data for news, and to expand the imagination of sociology.
