Rats in NYC are widespread, as they are in many densely populated areas. As of October 2023, NYC dropped from the 2nd to the 3rd place in the annual “rattiest city” list released by a pest control company.
Join Dr. Jun Yan and data science students from the University of Connecticut for presentations that delve into the presence of rats in the city, including a detailed analysis of city-wide rat sighting and rodent inspection data from the City’s Health Department. The student’s work includes descriptive statistics and visualizations of rat sightings across the city. The maps will be further analyzed to uncover correlations between rat sightings and various factors, including sociodemographic profiles, housing characteristics, and the physical landscape of the city. Additionally, we will share our investigation into the broader impact of rat sightings on other civic functions within NYC, like restaurant inspections, by integrating other NYC Open Data sources.
This engaging and informative workshop will be conducted by a selected group of students from the University of Connecticut, enrolled in the Introduction to Data Science course. These students have completed this work as part of their midterm assignment. They will show the results from their analyses as well as the Python code that generated the analyses. The workshop is open to anyone who is interested in urban challenges or data science.