Curious about your neighborhood’s COVID vaccine rate? Here’s how to find Georgia data
The Georgia Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard is a tool residents can use to find vaccination rates in their local cities and neighborhoods.
DPH’s vaccine dashboard provides vaccination rates at state, county and local levels, and includes vaccination rates among different demographics.
Public health and government officials throughout Georgia continue encouraging residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19, especially ahead of the winter season.
Here’s more about how to use the COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard.
Basic functions of the dashboard
The dashboard can be used on a mobile device or desktop, but the experience is easier to navigate on a desktop.
At the top right of the vaccine dashboard, vaccine rates can be filtered by county. At the top left, a window updates the number of vaccines administered in total and per 100,000 people.
Below that is the total numbers and percentages of residents vaccinated by the first and second doses received.
A small box at the bottom left of the dashboard shows when the data was last updated. Typically, this occurs every weekday around 2 p.m. However, if there are glitches or there’s a holiday, the update may be delayed.
Looking deeper into the data
Underneath the map of Georgia, there are additional tabs users can browse through, including:
Tract: Vax 1+ shows the percent of residents who have received at least one dose of the vaccine by census tracts. A census tract is a small, statistical subdivision of a county or equivalent entity, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It’s best used by filtering the dashboard to show data for one county, and then zooming in on the map. Users can zoom in close enough to see street names in their neighborhoods. Click on a tract to view vaccination data for the specific census tract.
Tract: Full Vax is the same as Tract: Vax 1+, but the map presents data for fully vaccinated residents.
Another box on the top right of the screen contains demographic information. There are two sets of demographic data in the dashboard: how vaccine recipients are distributed demographically and the percentage of demographic populations that have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
For example, this tab in the box will show what percentage of vaccine recipients are Asian, and also what percentage of the Asian population has received a vaccine.
The last box on the bottom right shows the changes in vaccination data over time. Users can zoom in on specific time periods by adjusting the charts using the bar at the top. Although this is a separate box on the desktop sites, mobile users will find it on the list of tabs on the main box.
Where does the data come from?
Georgia law requires anyone who administers a vaccine licensed for use by the Food and Drug Administration to enter each individual vaccine into the Georgia Registry for Immunization Transactions and Services (GRITS), according to the dashboard. Vaccine providers during the pandemic are expected to enter records into GRITS within 24 hours of administration.
The data in the dashboard is useful for assessing state and county vaccination rates in Georgia, however it may underestimate the actual number of people who have received the vaccine due to a number of limitations.
Some vaccination data may not be submitted to GRITS properly or there could be errors that result in missing information.
GRITS isn’t set up to capture a person’s occupation or comorbidities.
Some data, such as demographic information, is self-reported by the individual and may be incomplete if a person chooses not to report the information or a provider doesn’t enter the complete information.
Some data relies on manual data entry, and there may be instances where inaccurate information is manually entered into GRITS.
The rates are based on county population estimates from 2018 census data. Additionally, people who were vaccinated in another state would not be included in the GRITS data.
