by cse13 | Nov 21, 2025 | Dashboard, Visualization
Samer is a 58-year-old shop owner in Baabda.
He has diabetes and hypertension, and like many others living with chronic conditions, he spent the early months of the pandemic in quiet fear. He followed every guideline, avoided unnecessary outings, and even closed his shop early just to stay safe.
As I began working with data on chronic disease prevalence across Lebanon, I kept thinking about people like Samer; individuals whose health risks existed long before COVID-19 arrived. It made me wonder:
Do districts with more people like Samer also end up reporting more COVID-19 cases?
At first, the logic seemed simple:
more chronic conditions should mean higher vulnerability, and higher vulnerability should mean more cases.
But once I visualized the data, the story turned out to be more complicated than that.
When we look at Baabda, Samer’s home district, the pattern is exactly what we expect.
Baabda and Matn have a high chronic disease prevalence which explains why they recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases. These districts appear in red in the visualization because they represent the expected relationship:
high chronic disease prevalence accompanied by high COVID-19 case counts.
Most other districts show the same downward pattern: fewer chronic illnesses tend to come with fewer reported infections.
It’s the straightforward story we anticipate.
Until one district breaks it.
While exploring the data, Akkar immediately stood out.
Unlike Baabda or Matn, Akkar shows relatively low COVID-19 case numbers despite having a high prevalence of chronic diseases.
At first glance, this shouldn’t happen. But Akkar tells a different health story.
Akkar is less dense, has fewer specialized medical centers, and mobility patterns differ.
But an important social factor also played a role: many residents initially believed COVID-19 was “just a flu”, something exaggerated, not dangerous. Because of that, people were far less likely to get tested, especially when symptoms were mild or unclear.
So, the low case numbers may not reflect low infections, they reflect low detection.
Akkar shows us that vulnerability isn’t only biological or medical. Sometimes it’s cultural, structural, or tied to trust in the health system itself.
That was the moment when the visualization stopped being merely a chart and became a real narrative.
People like Samer live in districts where both chronic disease and COVID-19 risks were high and highly visible.
But in Akkar, people with the same medical vulnerabilities faced a quieter, more hidden risk, one that doesn’t always show up in official numbers but still shapes their health outcomes.
This is the heart of the story: patterns tell us what usually happens, but exceptions reveal what we might be missing.
Understanding these mismatches matters.
High-case, high-risk districts like Baabda and Matn may need more hospital capacity and emergency planning.
High-risk, low-case districts like Akkar may need earlier outreach, awareness campaigns, and accessible screening, especially in communities that may initially resist testing.
If we focus only on case counts, we risk overlooking communities that need protection long before outbreaks become visible.
When I think back to Samer, closing his shop early every night, hoping to stay healthy, I’m reminded that data becomes meaningful when it reflects real people.
In public health, the story doesn’t live only in the trend.
It lives in the exception.
Because that’s where we discover the next challenge before it appears.
by ara62 | Nov 21, 2025 | Dashboard, Visualization
The summer of 2025 was one fo the driest summer of all time in Lebanon according to Lebanese sources
Every day, we see water tanks going to supply water to houses and businesses. This year was the first time that Lebanese living in rural areas such as Akkar and Baalbek, where water has always been available, needed to purchase water; the public network didn’t supply any, and even deep-dug wells were dry.
People were forced to depend on private water tankers, which increased their monthly expenses and created constant anxiety.
The main problem is not the lack of water in Lebanon. The real issue is the collapse of the water distribution system, poor infrastructure maintenance, and unequal government investment between districts.
The Water Availability chart confirms the consequences of this gap:
– Akkar receives 240 units of water.
– Tripoli receives only 8 units.
This shows that water is not being transported equally to the districts and towns in Lebanon, even between towns of the same governorate. That can be explained by the lack of water infrastructure and a government vision of water distribution. It is worth mentioning that towns like Tripoli receive way less water than others (Akkar) even though they have bigger populations.
The Network Quality Index shows a massive gap between districts:
Akkar (blue dot) scored 110; Tripoli (red dot) scored only 6.
The network quality index shown in the graph above indicates that even the quality of the water available in districts is different. Some get high-quality water; others don’t.
Districts with high-quality water, such as Akkar, indicate a relatively strong and functioning network. While those with low quality, such as Tripoli, reflect broken pipes, leakage, and a failing system.
These numbers prove that where the network is weak, water does not reach people. This makes the crisis structural rather than environmental.
Several potential solutions can address this issue:
– Rehabilitating old pipe networks and replacing damaged infrastructure
– Creating fair distribution plans between districts
– Educating citizens on responsible water use
These solutions aim to fix the system instead of treating only the symptoms.
The most effective solution is investing in infrastructure renewal in low-performing districts, especially Tripoli.
This includes:
– Replacing broken water pipelines
– Stabilizing pumping stations
– Ensuring regular maintenance schedules
The validation of this solution comes directly from the data.
Districts like Akkar, which have better network quality, also enjoy higher water availability. This shows that improved infrastructure directly leads to better access.
Therefore, replicating the same infrastructure approach in weaker districts can significantly reduce inequality and improve reliability.
Lebanon does not suffer from a lack of water. It suffers from a lack of planning.
Water exists, but the system fails to deliver it fairly.
Access to water should not depend on where you live.
Water must be treated as a basic human right, not a privilege.
by amk112 | Nov 21, 2025 | Dashboard, Visualization
The Surprising Fact
Around one out of every five tourism facilities in Lebanon is concentrated in just two governorates: Baabda and Akkar.
When I first mapped the number of hotels, restaurants, cafés, and guest houses across all regions, this pattern immediately stood out.
Lebanon is often celebrated for its geographic diversity – mountains, coast, valleys, and historic towns – yet the distribution of tourism infrastructure reveals a different story, one marked by clear regional imbalance. Even more interesting, Baabda and Akkar are not traditionally seen as the country’s top touristic destinations, which makes this concentration even more surprising.
Setting the Context
Tourism has long been one of Lebanon’s essential economic pillars. It creates jobs, sustains small and medium businesses, and brings much-needed spending into local communities.
Because of this, understanding where tourism infrastructure is located is not just a mapping exercise. It helps us see deeper patterns in development, accessibility, and how opportunities are distributed across the country. Regions with more facilities attract more visitors, investment, and employment, while others risk being left behind.
Introducing the Visualization
To explore this issue, I developed the visualization shown below. It ranks Lebanese governorates by their total number of tourism facilities, combining four types of establishments:
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Hotels
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Restaurants
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Cafés
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Guest houses
The data comes from the Lebanon Tourism Dataset 2024 and reflects the most recent nationwide mapping of tourism infrastructure. The chart uses color to highlight the top two regions, with the remaining governorates shown in muted tones to provide context without overwhelming the viewer.
The Core Insight
The chart makes one fact impossible to ignore:
Baabda and Akkar together host 1,249 tourism facilities – about 20% of all facilities in Lebanon.
Baabda leads with 631 facilities, followed closely by Akkar with 618. No other governorate reaches these levels. The third-highest region, Matn, drops to 383 facilities, and the numbers continue to decrease as we move toward more peripheral areas such as Hasbaya, Marjeyoun, and the Bekaa.
This reveals a strong centralization of tourism infrastructure in just a few locations, while many other regions operate with a significantly smaller base of hotels, restaurants, cafés, and guest houses.
Why This Matters
This concentration has several important implications:
1. Limited Regional Economic Spillover
Tourism-driven income is more likely to stay within a small set of governorates. Regions with fewer facilities miss out on employment opportunities, business growth, and investment linked to tourism.
2. Uneven Visitor Experience
Visitors may repeatedly encounter the same areas, such as Baabda and Akkar, instead of discovering Lebanon’s full variety of landscapes, heritage sites, and rural communities. This can reinforce the perception that tourism is “meant” for certain regions only.
3. Underused Infrastructure Potential
Areas like Tyre, Baalbek-Hermel, Batroun, and Nabatieh have strong cultural, historical, and natural assets, yet they remain comparatively underserved in terms of tourism infrastructure. The gap between their potential and current facility levels represents a missed opportunity.
A Deeper Imbalance
Looking at the totals by group of regions makes this imbalance even clearer:
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Top 2 governorates (Baabda & Akkar):
1,249 facilities – about 20% of the national total
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Next 3 governorates combined:
1,096 facilities – around 18%
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Remaining 20+ governorates combined:
3,801 facilities – about 62%
Most individual governorates therefore hold less than 5% of the country’s tourism infrastructure. This suggests long-standing gaps in how tourism investments and services have been distributed geographically.
An Opportunity Hidden in the Data
While these patterns highlight inequality, they also point to a clear opportunity.
If even a modest share of new tourism projects, guest houses, or hospitality investments were directed toward underrepresented regions, Lebanon could unlock:
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More balanced economic development
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New, locally anchored jobs
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Stronger domestic tourism flows
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A richer and more diverse visitor experience
Regions such as Zgharta, Batroun, Tyre, and the Bekaa already show emerging clusters of facilities. With targeted planning and support, they could become anchors for broader regional tourism strategies.
Final Takeaway
Understanding where tourism infrastructure currently exists – and where it is missing – is essential for designing a more inclusive tourism future for Lebanon.
The data tells a clear and actionable story:
Lebanon’s tourism future depends on looking beyond a small set of concentrated governorates and deliberately investing across the country’s full geography.
By doing so, tourism can shift from being a localized advantage to a national engine for development and shared prosperity.
by cvs02 | Nov 21, 2025 | Dashboard, Uncategorized, Visualization
Teta Salma lives in a small village in the Hermel District. The nearest clinic is far from her home and opens on an unpredictable schedule, so routine tests are rarely part of her life. She often feels tired but assumes it is simply age catching up with her. During a visit to her daughter in Mount Lebanon, she took her to a nearby medical center for a simple checkup. That day she learned she had diabetes. The condition had been part of her life for years. It had only been discovered because she finally had access.
Her experience reflects something that appears across Lebanon when we look at the data. Using the Health Status 2023 and Health Resources 2023 datasets from PKGCube, I compared reported chronic disease cases with the number of healthcare facilities available in each governorate and district. I combined hypertension, cardiovascular disease and diabetes into one chronic disease measure. I then compared these counts with the number of care centers and first aid centers in each region:
The visualization revealed a clear pattern: Regions with stronger reach and more places to get a routine check reported higher counts of chronic disease. Akkar stands out with 390 chronic disease cases and 126 healthcare facilities. Mount Lebanon and Baalbek Hermel show a similar alignment. Areas with limited reach, such as Hermel or the Western Beqaa, showed much lower numbers.
These lower numbers do not necessarily reflect lower illness. They reflect reduced visibility. When people cannot reach a clinic easily, fewer conditions are recorded and many remain unnoticed until symptoms become harder to ignore.
To understand how better reach affects health data, I looked at the experience of Thailand. The country expanded primary care and community screening through its Universal Health Coverage program. Once routine checks became easier to access, more cases of hypertension and diabetes were identified, especially in rural areas. Detection of hypertension increased from 48.9 percent in 2016 to 53.3 percent in 2019, and diabetes detection rose from 67.4 percent to 74.7 percent during the same period. These changes showed how wider access can reveal conditions that were present long before.
This is similar to what we see in Lebanon. When people have access, more of the country’s true chronic disease burden becomes visible. When access is limited, the data looks lighter than reality.
A practical next step for Lebanon is to expand routine screening in districts with fewer facilities. Mobile clinics, community testing days and partnerships with universities or NGOs can bring basic checks closer to the communities that need them. Improved digital record systems can also help track early diagnoses more accurately. Monitoring places like Hermel, Bsharri or the Western Beqaa can show if these efforts are working.
Healthcare access shapes what we know about people’s health. Strengthening that access gives families the chance to understand their conditions earlier and manage them with clarity. It also brings us back to people like Teta Salma. Her diabetes did not begin the day she was screened. It became visible because she finally reached a place where someone could help her.
Supporting more communities in this way can bring hidden conditions to light and build healthier lives across Lebanon.
by jje23 | Nov 21, 2025 | Dashboard, Visualization
If you grew up in Lebanon, you’ve probably heard someone say: “If this illness happened in Beirut, things would’ve been easier.”
I’ve heard it from relatives and friends who had to drive for hours for a simple check-up.
Healthcare in Lebanon has never felt equal, but I always wondered: Is this just a feeling, or is the data telling the same story?
To explore this, I combined two national datasets:
One mapping where chronic diseases and special needs appear across Lebanese towns, and another showing where healthcare facilities are actually located.
- These visuals show that rural regions, especially Akkar, Baalbeck-Hermel, and the North, have the highest share of towns reporting chronic diseases, confirming that Lebanon’s heaviest health burdens fall on its most underserved areas.
- We can see that most healthcare facilities are concentrated in urban Mount Lebanon, creating an imbalance where the regions with the greatest health needs have the least medical infrastructure.
To understand this imbalance more clearly, I looked at disease prevalence side-by-side with the availability of the healthcare resources that matter most for each condition.
The question was simple: when a disease appears in a town, is the right type of care actually nearby?
Therefore, I paired each condition with the resource most relevant to its management, based on clinical practice and literature:
• Hypertension → hospitals
• Diabetes → clinics
• Cardiovascular disease → pharmacies or medical centers
• Special needs → dedicated care centers
Once I paired each condition with the care it requires, a clear imbalance appeared:
• The regions most affected by disease had the least access to the services they needed.
• The regions with lighter disease presence had the strongest concentration of facilities.
A clear example is hypertension vs hospitals:
•Akkar, Baalbeck-Hermel, the North, and parts of the South showed high hypertension presence, yet had some of the lowest hospital capacity.
•Meanwhile, Mount Lebanon, with lower prevalence, had more hospitals than all of them combined.
This is more than an imbalance; it’s an access gap that shapes real health outcomes.
So, what does Lebanon need?
- Targeted decentralization, not more hospitals everywhere.
Rural regions don’t need giant new medical complexes.
They need strategically placed clinics, chronic-disease screening units, hypertension/diabetes corners, and even mobile health programs.
- Allocate resources based on data
Mount Lebanon already has the largest medical footprint.
But Akkar, Baalbeck-Hermel, the North, and the South need urgent investment.
- Build capacity where it matters.
Even a single medical center, diagnostic pharmacy, or special-needs support unit can shift accessibility for hundreds of towns.
- Make data-driven planning routine.
Lebanon produces far more data than most people realize, we just don’t use it.
Dashboards and visual can guide ministries, municipalities, NGOs, donors, and health planners to invest where impact will be highest.
Lebanon doesn’t suffer from a lack of medical knowledge, it suffers from a lack of medical access. And the good news is that access can change.
If resources finally start following the data, rural Lebanon won’t stay medically invisible. The map is clear, now the planning needs to follow.
by gji02 | Nov 20, 2025 | Dashboard, Uncategorized, Visualization
A personal journey into the places we love, the beauty we overlook, and the opportunities we’re losing
Lebanon is a country overflowing with natural beauty, history, culture, and authentic local experiences. A place where even the smallest town holds a story, a scent of zaatar from a bakery at dawn, the echo of church bells or the call to prayer drifting across the valley, the laughter of families gathered near rivers, old souks, and mountain trails.
These moments stay with us.
They shape who we are.
They remind us of a Lebanon that feels peaceful, grounding, and full of life.
But beneath the familiar hotspots we all rush to, there is a deeper truth, a truth rarely captured in brochures or tourism campaigns.
Many Lebanese towns already hold everything a thriving tourism ecosystem needs… except support.
Growing up here, these towns shaped my identity. Their landscapes, their people, their rhythm, all felt alive.
Yet as I grew older, I began to notice something painful:
The towns we love are often the ones left behind.
Where Beauty Lives but Support Does Not
Before looking at individual towns, I started from a broader question:
Do the regions of Lebanon with high tourism appeal receive the infrastructure support they need?
As Tourism Index shows how naturally attractive or culturally rich a region is, the Infrastructure Capacity refers to the services that allow tourism to function (cafés, restaurants, accommodations, facilities, etc.)
Some towns rise high on the “Tourism Index”, but fall flat on actual investments.
While many regions score well on tourism attractiveness, their infrastructure such roads, accommodations, public spaces, services, and tourism support systems lag far behind, making it difficult for visitors to stay, explore, and contribute economically.
This mismatch isn’t just a technical imbalance. It reflects a deeper, more emotional reality.
Some towns are seen, while others are not.
Some receive attention, while others remain forgotten.
And the ones left behind are not lacking in beauty, they are lacking in support.
We already see what happens when beauty is supported. Regions like Baabda, Akkar, and Matn, all scoring high on both Tourism Index and infrastructure, thrive simply because they were given the basics. They are the proof of what every overlooked town could become with just a little support.
Beauty and heritage exist everywhere in Lebanon, yet so much of it continues to wait quietly for the support it deserves.
Each bar represents a town that has natural beauty or cultural heritage, but zero visible tourism development. These are places with stories, landscapes, and identity waiting silently for investment.
Over the years some Lebanese towns have received tourism-related initiatives.
But when we look only at towns that already have attractions, a striking pattern appears:
Most of them, despite having natural, cultural, or historical treasures , received no initiatives at all.
No projects;
No funding;
No development;
No strategy;
Just silence.
The Hardest Truth: Even the Most Attractive Towns Receive Nothing
Some may argue:
“Maybe those towns don’t have attractions.”
But when we look closely at towns that already possess attractions, the painful truth becomes impossible to deny.
Potential without support becomes a burden. Towns that could thrive remain stuck. Communities that could flourish stay stagnant. And the tourism narrative becomes narrower, excluding places that rightfully belong in it.
The towns most ready to be activated are often the ones completely overlooked.
3 out of 4 received no support. None.
This is not a coincidence.
It is not a gap.
It is a systemic misalignment between where potential exists and where initiatives are delivered.
These are towns where: visitors already come, landscapes already impress, heritage already exists, infrastructure is partially there. Yet development never reaches them.
Looking at the Data as a Lebanese Citizen
When I step back, not as a student, not as an analyst, but as someone who grew up here, the message becomes clear:
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We have so much beauty, but we overlook it.
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We have so much potential, but we do not unlock it.
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We have communities waiting, but no one comes.
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We have foundations ready, but not activated.
The problem is not the towns.
The problem is the absence of action.
Every chart you saw above points to the same conclusion:
Lebanon’s opportunity is not in discovering new places, it is in believing in the ones we already have.
Imagine what would happen if:
Aley’s cafés received marketing and infrastructure upgrades, Akkar’s hiking trails were formalized Byblos’ surrounding villages received preservation grants Hasbaya’s guesthouses were connected to tourism.
platforms, Baalbek-Hermel’s rural attractions were promoted, Marjeyoun’s landscapes were protected and activated…
These are not dreams. These are realistic, steps, and now we know exactly where we should begin.
Lebanon does not need to invent new beauty.
It simply needs to believe in the beauty it already has.
The potential is real.
The foundations exist.
The opportunity is now.
What we need… is action.
Let’s stop waiting for “better times.”
