Authored by City Health Dashboard
Each June, the National League of Cities (NLC) celebrates Small Cities Month to recognize and honor municipalities with populations of 50,000 or less. The annual Put Us on the Map Challenge by the City Health Dashboard (CHDB) ensures that smaller communities can see neighborhood-level data for 30+ factors that influence health.
Applications will be accepted June 1-30. Selected cities will be notified this summer, with data available starting this winter.
In this blog, you’ll learn about three small cities who turned data into action for their residents, as well as which NLC and Dashboard resources are available to small cities. These tools can help you utilize local, accessible data to serve your community in new ways, regardless of your city’s size.
Data for Small Cities
Small cities often lack access to data due to staff capacity and limited resources. Yet data can lead to needed funding by highlighting the need in your community to interested funders as well as rigorous and locally-relevant policy solutions.
Since 2018, the City Health Dashboard has provided city and community leaders with regularly updated data parsed to neighborhood and/or city boundaries. Through the challenge, the Dashboard now offers data on over 30 measures for small cities such as life expectancy, park access and children in poverty. The Dashboard currently provides data for 305 cities with a population of under 50,000 residents.
Small cities frequently asked to be added to the Dashboard because they could see the relevance of the data to their community. To meet this need, in 2022, we launched the Put Us on the Map challenge. We wanted to hear more from these smaller cities — to understand how they would use our data, and how we could support them in doing so. For the past four years we’ve provided smaller cities (some with populations as low as 1,000 residents) the chance to join the Dashboard and access the rich data and resources that we offer to cities across the country. Over the past four years, we’ve added 185 smaller cities to the map.
We’re excited to continue supporting small U.S. cities by helping them gain access to a one-stop resource that provides data used to guide local solutions for healthier, more equitable communities.
Local Data in Action
Here’s what three Put Us on the Map cities — who are also NLC members — accomplished, after their data was put on the Dashboard:
- Marietta and Belpre, Ohio: Once these two small Ohio cities were added to the Dashboard in 2022, the Marietta/Belpre health department integrated Dashboard data into a new Community Health Assessment (CHA)/Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) to improve their understanding of local challenges to meet the communities’ needs.
- Maplewood, N.J.: After being added to the Dashboard in 2023, Maplewood used Dashboard data to present evidence of health disparities in Maplewood at the Township Committee’s Board of Health meeting. As a result, the city implemented several initiatives focused on reducing drug and alcohol use in specific neighborhoods.
- Nacogdoches, Texas: In 2023, Nacogdoches, Texas was added to the Dashboard to support a partnership between the city and Better Together, a Nacogdoches County organization dedicated to improving resident health. Through this partnership, Dashboard data helped residents learn about the social determinates of health and mental health in their city, and then take action to address social and systemic inequities.
Resources for Small Cities
To learn more about Put Us on the Map and how accessible data can serve small cities, join the upcoming “Put Your City on the Map: Free Health Data for Small Cities” webinar cohosted by CHDB and NLC on June 17 at 2:00 PM ET. Dashboard specialists will share details on the 2026 Put Us on the Map Challenge. Attendees will also hear firsthand from Mayor Sonja A. Brown and Mayor Pro Tem Travis Bruton of Glenn Heights, Texas — a 2025 Put Us On the Map Challenge city — regarding their successes and lessons learned in the work advancing resident health and wellbeing in their small city.
In addition to Put Us on the Map, CHDB and NLC offer various additional resources to support small cities in supporting their residents.
- Impact Stories illustrate how cities are using Dashboard data to improve health and wellbeing among their residents.
- Measuring What Matters: A City-Focused Guide to Health Data and Changemaking is an easy-to-use data playbook designed to support cities as they integrate data into their own work.
- The Take Action section of the City Health Dashboard provides tools and resources to help move data to action.
Small Cities Month Resources
- NLC’s Small Cities Council is open to municipal officials from member cities with populations of 50,000 or less. Participants share ideas and creative solutions to challenges affecting small cities.
- Access 16,000 relevant Municipal Grants via fellow NLC Partner, GrantFinder by Lexipol.
Please contact the Dashboard team or NLC with any questions.
Visit the NLC Strategic Partnerships page to learn more about organizations like City Health Dashboard dedicated to making NLC the premier resource for local governments.
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