Background:
In designing a global index of future-readiness for healthcare challenges, we considered a globally representative infographic. One of the challenges included meaningfully conveying differentiation across a a number of complex spaces, such as climate change, population growth and urban migration. Also, the challenge of conveying constructively the differentiation between competing continents and cities.

Purpose: We considered a graphic design for the infographic of the index to effectively communicate the future effectiveness of healthcare in different cities around the world. While we designed an index to compare the preparedness of cities to health challenges, we need a visually engaging design for the infographic to raise awareness of emerging trends, such as ageing populations, risk of pandemic and climate change.

Methods: Achieving a visually effective representation for an infographic required robust design for the index in the first instance, so that the choice of cities, index criteria and criteria indicators were credible.
The graphic design considered different formats for constructively managing competing cities (e.g. neutral colourings), and including graphical representations of data accuracy and availability.

Results: We determined a heat-map-based graphic design for infographics of outputs from the index. This included a neutral ‘non-hostile’ colour scheme to encourage engagement between competing cities and regions of the world. Also, the use of transparency to indicate data accuracy and availability, which helps to avoid ‘information overload’ from including more figures. We further determined a novel approach to annual improvement in the index, given the focus on future-readiness of the index

Conclusions: We designed an infographic format for our index to provide visually a constructive and insightful global comparison for policy makers, practitioners and researchers working in public health and healthcare provision. This included visually representing data accuracy and availability, because it was important to instantly convey the high variability between different cities and regions. Therefore, we consider this to provide a robust design to ensure constructive engagement for the outcomes of the index.