On this guide
This guide was put together to offer quick access to some of the resources that gather statistics and data related to diseases and health related concerns. Categories were assigned to assist in determining which type or location might work best for your research need. Additional resources and recommendations for this guide are welcome.
Overview
- Learning About Health Statisticsfrom the NICHSR-a self study tutorial
Health Data Sharing to Support Better Outcomes by Call Number: Ebook - NCBI BookshelfISBN: 9780309705097Publication Date: 2021The effective use of data is foundational to the concept of a learning health system?one that leverages and shares data to learn from every patient experience, and feeds the results back to clinicians, patients and families, and health care executives to transform health, health care, and health equity. More than ever, the American health care system is in a position to harness new technologies and new data sources to improve individual and population health. Learning health systems are driven by multiple stakeholders...
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Note: credit to Will Dean of Temple University for this information.
Raw Data vs. Statistics
Before diving into the data access options available from the CDC, first consider what kind of data you are looking for: raw data or statistics.
Raw Data
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Raw data is unprocessed or mostly unprocessed data collected by researchers and is not usually interpretable without statistical analysis.
- Raw data will likely have variable names that are not human readable and need to be decoded by a data dictionary or guide, and the data will need to be weighted correctly during analysis.
- Raw data may include different demographic populations and variables in the same dataset, such as adults aged 18-24 in Bergan County, NJ who were injured by a vehicle, or Native Americans living in North Dakota who were injured at work. If you plan on doing your own statistical analysis of data, using SAS, SPSS, R or another statistical software, you should look for raw data.
Statistics
- Statistics are processed data derived from raw data and are usually presented in a human readable format.
- Statistics are already weighted and can be used as is in a research paper by displaying a table of variables and values, or quoting a statistic, like “During August 2020–February 2021, the percentage of adults with recent symptoms of an anxiety or a depressive disorder increased from 36.4% to 41.5%.” (Vahratian A, Blumberg SJ, Terlizzi EP, Schiller JS. Symptoms of Anxiety or Depressive Disorder and Use of Mental Health Care Among Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic — United States, August 2020–February 2021. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2021;70:490–494. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7013e2)
Key Data Resources
- America's Health RankingsAnnual analysis of national health on a state-by-state basis. Ranks the healthiest and least healthy states. Browse by state and by measure. Includes Senior data.
- Research Data and Tools: Agency for Healthcare Research and QualityState Snapshots, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, U.S. Health Information Knowledgebase (metadata registry of healthcare-related data standards funded and directed by AHRQ.
- HSR Information Central: Data, Tools & StatisticsFrom the National Institutes of Health, HSRIC is a research portal of health services research resources providing numerous Internet links to data, funding announcements, reports, podcasts, discussion groups, and more. It contains selective links representing a sample of available information. Items are selected for their quality, authority of authorship, uniqueness, and appropriateness.
- ICPSR: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social ResearchICPSR is a non-profit membership-based data archive based at University of Michigan. Access to datasets and related studies on a wide variety of topics.
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Data HubThe official data archive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is free and accessible to all researchers, students and policy-makers. National averages and state data for health care costs and quality, covering the uninsured, insurance status, public health, social determinants of health, healthier lifestyles, health care value and equality. Select from a wide variety of indicators, such as obesity, preventable hospitalizations, immunizations, nutrition policies, smoking, BMI screening, chronic disease prevalence, public health funding, medicare/medicaid costs, income inequality, unemployment, and much more.
Citing Statistics Resources
Citing can be a challenge when looking at the variety of sources and formats that statistical information comes in. Here are a few helpful sources.