Progress for Every Child in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Era

ALY 6070 Communication and Visualization for Data Analytics

Progress for Every Child in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Era

Background:

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is a United Nations Agency headquartered in New York City, that provides humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries.

The organization reports and tracks 44 child-relevant Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators, identifying areas where greater efforts are needed.

For this assignment we examine UNICEF’s first comprehensive assessment on progress towards achieving global SDG targets for children under five years of age.

Attached are reports specific to Regional and global under-five mortality rate (U5MR) trended over time, as well as Under 5 Child Mortality Estimates by Cause of death reported for 2018.

Instructions:

This analysis will leverage Chapter 8 of the textbook. Groups must identify and communicate a story in the data using both data visualization techniques and written text.

Specifically, each group must select three countries to examine for their analysis. You may choose the countries based on any rationale so long as you justify your choice in the written section of your paper.

For your three countries selected:

1)     
Prepare a set of summary graphs trending under 5 mortality rates over time using the dataset U5MR_mortality_rate_2018.

You don’t need separate graphs for each item below, just make sure your graphs cover all these items by the time you conclude Part 1, but some graphs may have more than one item reflected if you feel it appropriate to do so.

After each graph, provide your analysis and offer your insights and observations to guide the viewer to your key findings.

a.      
For this analysis you should use only the median values of each country and disregard the upper and lower bounds. This will require you to clean and format the dataset before you import it into R or Tableau.

b.      
At least one of your graphs must include a comparison to the global U5MR over the same time.

c.      
At least one of your graphs must include a comparison to regional estimates over the same time for each of the countries you selected (e.g. Mexico would be compared to North America). Only select one regional estimate per country and justify your selection in the written section of your paper.

d.      
At least one of your graphs must include a visual comparison to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) U5MR in 2030 for your countries. Visually indicate on your graph whether the countries have met this goal by the year 2017. The goal for 2030 can be found here: https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/child-survival-sdgs/

2)     
Prepare summary graph for your countries of 2016 under 5 mortality rates by cause of death using the second dataset: Cause-of-death 2017

After each graph, provide your analysis and offer your insights and observations to guide the viewer to your key findings.

a.      
It is up to you whether you want to summarize for all children ages 5 and under (columns C thru P) or by age group Newborns vs. 1 – 59 months (columns Q thru AG) or both. You might consider analyzing both comparisons and identifying which version of your graph has the more compelling story. Justify your selection in your written section of your paper.

b.      
Indicate visually on your graphs the top three causes of death utilizing the tools we discussed during lecture (e.g. highlight colors, size, shape, etc.)

c.      
Compare the top three causes of death for your selected countries in 2016 to the year 2000 which is also available in the same dataset.

3)     
Prepare a written summary of your analysis where you elaborate on the following:

a.      
Which countries did you select and why? This should be in the introduction section of your paper

b.      
What is the story you want to communicate to your audience about your three countries? Specifically, name 3 key takeaways that you learned as a team from analyzing your data that you want your audience to understand. This should be in the conclusion of your paper

c.      
Throughout your story narrative, offer any context to the data by researching global events and citing them in your paper. For example, Haiti saw in increase in U5MR in 2010 per the dataset. You should be able to identify this was due to the earthquake that occurred at that time. Offer those additional insights for your country, don’t just report on the numbers, contextualize them in their history.

d.      
Be sure to use outside sources to support any assertions you make outside of the data. Cite these sources using APA citation format.

Your final paper should be ~ 8 – 12 pages of double-spaced text using 12-point font not including citations.

It is recommended that you intersperse your graphs in between your text to most effectively communicate your story to your audience.

It is acceptable to add additional text to your data visualizations directly in MS Word if you prefer that method, i.e. it is not required that text is added in Tableau or R Shiny.

Submit your final group paper into the assignment drop box available in Week 6 Assignments. Only one submission per group is required.

This group paper will be the only deliverable for the assignment, however I may ask some groups to submit additional documentation for verification, such as tableau workbook and R files as needed.

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