Nation Vitals wins Rep. Pat Harrigan’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in North Carolina’s 10th District

When asked what inspired the creation of Nation Vitals, Roshan Naik said, “The burgeoning crisis of drug overdose and substance abuse, especially in my home state of North Carolina, deeply concerned me. Despite living in a District that has tackled this issue at its core, I was concerned about whether an average citizen could easily look up overdose and mental health data in their region and neighboring areas, from concerned parents to amateur journalists working on uncovering the factors that may lead to more unfortunate injuries and deaths.

“During the pandemic, I read about families and friends nationwide losing loved ones to addiction and mental health struggles. Yet when I tried to understand why some counties were hit harder than others, I found fragmented, outdated, and inconsistent data scattered across multiple public databases. Moreover, research papers are inaccessible to the general public, and newspapers or media may distort facts or ignore confounding factors if they are not robust in their approach.

“That gap inspired me to create NationVitals. A centralized, interactive platform that brings together the nation’s most critical public health data to uncover local disparities. Over 6 months, I painstakingly read papers, interviewed experts, and identified all the key factors to consider and control for when trying to establish multivariable relationships within components of a complex social system. I wanted to empower citizens, policymakers, and fellow researchers to explore how factors like poverty, crime, and education interact with mental health and overdose outcomes. It is not simply that poorer counties or those with higher crime rates face increasing drug accidents: the relationship is much more multifaceted and dependent on policies and geography than one can imagine.

“As someone passionate about computer science and civic engagement, I saw technology as a bridge between Big Data and public understanding. Through visualization and transparent sourcing, NationVitals fights misinformation, spreads awareness, and turns numbers into actionable insight. My goal is not just to analyze trends but to humanize them. Using this data, Congress can prioritize funding at the county level for relevant government programs and welfare. NationVitals will help communities uncover the patterns behind pain and inspire targeted, evidence-based top-down change where it’s needed most.”