Data Visualization for Environmental Epidemiology with ggplot2: Mastering Presentation-Grade Figures
On this page:
Data visualization is critical to conveying new findings from research and is a vital part of advancing the field of epidemiology around the globe. There are a variety of options for creating figures with licensed software, but data visualization packages like ggplot2/R are easily accessible and economical alternatives that can produce high quality and journal-ready figures. The syntax of ggplot2 is challenging to learn, so this workshop aims to allow participants to become comfortable with the syntax of ggplot2, create elegant, complex figures, and be comfortable applying the skills learned to their own research projects.
This workshop, led by a diverse, all-female panel of new researchers, will offer interactive examples using R statistical software. This session will begin with a brief introduction to the ggplot2 package and supporting packages. We will cover general practices for manipulating data structures and data formatting for creating ggplots. We will spend the majority of the workshop introducing examples of various plots that are frequently used in epidemiology, focusing on the following aspects: adding confidence intervals to point estimates; manipulating background, axes, titles, legends, colors, themes; creating maps; and saving and exporting high resolution figures.
We assume that participants will have some experience in statistical programming. No prior experience with ggplot is necessary, but this workshop is not meant to be an introduction to R.
The views expressed in this workshop are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the USEPA.