On March 23, 2010 President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. One of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act was to help increase instances of breastfeeding. It required insurance companies to cover the cost of breastfeeding equipment and amended the Fair Labor Standards Act so employers have to provide adequate space and time to express breast milk at work.
It has been eight years since the ACA passed. Did the ACA affect breastfeeding? The short answer is yes.
Breastfeeding duration has increased by 10%
Breastfeeding rates are nearly at 85%
Breast pumps have been received by 1000% more
Score from the experts at Killer Infographics
Visual Communication - 35%
Design - 40%
Content/Script - 75%
Usability - 55%
51%
Final Grade
This infographic measures the Affordable Care Act's impact on breastfeeding in the United States, through the use of statistics about increases in breastfeeding and production of breastfeeding technology. This infographic's color palette is simple and visually pleasing, but the colors are so light that the text recedes into the white background and isn't easily readable. The text is error-free and communicates clearly, but the data visualizations that accompany it cause confusion. For example, the pie chart visualization appears to compare data points, but dissimilar data points are being compared, so the message of the graphic isn't clear. The data visualizations for "Breastfeeding Rates" and "Pumps Shipped" communicate their information effectively through line graphs, though. Overall, an overly soft color palette and confusing data visualizations obfuscate this infographic's message, although the text is well-written. We'd give this an F.
