Pick a layer on the left. The map colors all 93 counties by that measure. Public health context comes from CDC PLACES. HeadWater survey layers show what Nebraskans told us directly, county by county, once a county has enough responses.
Each list is ranked from the strongest signal down. A rank is where this county sits against the other 92 Nebraska counties; the priority call belongs to the county and the data governance board. Shaded rows are where this county ranks in the top quarter of the state (rank 23 or better of 93). White rows are everywhere else.
CDC PLACES values are model based estimates for small areas, so in a small county a rank is a signal, not a measurement. HeadWater lists appear only for counties past the respondent floor and after the governance board approves release. County Health Rankings (University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, 2025 release) draws on BRFSS, Census and vital statistics; measures where higher is better are ranked so that 1 still means most concern. "Where sources agree" lists topics where this county is in the top quarter of the state in both CDC PLACES and County Health Rankings, and, with partner access, where a HeadWater item in the county's top third matches a public measure in the top quarter.
For each of this county's top priorities, in order: the problem here, why it matters, what works, what is already in place, and the gap. "What works" lists only interventions graded by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force or Cochrane, in their own words. "In place" is what organizations in this county have reported and Verdant Equanim has verified. The gap opens one year after this county's HeadWater layer goes live.
Respondent floor. A county shows HeadWater results only when it has at least 10 submitted surveys. Below that it is hatched, and its responses are held back until the floor is reached. Individual answers are never shown.
Scores. The three HeadWater scales average their items on a 0 to 100 scale pointed in the stress direction, so a higher Financial Stress, Stress Load or Social Support score always means more strain. Item layers show the share of respondents giving the flagged answer, and the county panel shows the mean where the item has one.
Public layer. CDC PLACES county estimates, age-adjusted percent of adults, from 2023 BRFSS (short sleep from 2022). Model-based estimates, not direct counts. Source: data.cdc.gov PLACES county data.
Survey data. HeadWater survey layers on this public copy open county by county once a county passes the respondent floor and the Verdant Equanim data governance board approves release. No survey results are published here yet. Wave 2 opened 22 October 2026.
Year one. For each county, the "From priority to action" panel shows what works on its top priorities and what the county has reported it already has in place. The gap between the two is not shown until one year after the day that county's HeadWater layer goes live. During that year the inventory reads "not yet reported," never "nothing." Each county gets its own year, counted from its own go-live date, and any county can report what it has at any time.
Partner access. The passcode on this page is a preview curtain, not an account system. Registration by seat type (hospital, health department, school, Tribal Nation and so on), with each seat seeing what the data governance board says it may, is a platform feature planned for the 2027 build. Until then, request partner access by email and Verdant Equanim verifies by hand. Individuals never need a code: the county page, the research, what works and what is in place are theirs without one.