AHRQ Offers Interactive Tool To Analyze National and State Health Care Data

From the AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) press release

Mining for specific data on health care quality and disparities in the U.S.?  It’s an easy process with AHRQ’s NHQRDRnet online query system, which features data from the 2010 National Healthcare Quality Report and the National Healthcare Disparities Report.  At the State and national level, you’ll find quality-of-care data on clinical conditions ranging from asthma and diabetes to heart disease and cancer.  You can review data by specific age groups as well as by race, ethnicity, income, and education.  Using NHQRDRnet’s search tool, you can locate data tables based on selected words, chapters, or type of table.  Select to access AHRQ’s NHQRDRnet system.

Related Link

• Improving Data Collection to Reduce Health Disparities (Healthcare.gov)

 

For the Public’s Health: The Role of Measurement in Action and Accountability

Proper health care planning requires the collection and use of  good factual public health statistics. Sadly, according to this report, quality collection and application of health measurements are lacking partly because there is not enough coordination among governmental agencies  and private sector entities.

For the Public’s Health: The Role of Measurement in Action and Accountability assesses the current situation.
From the press release:

“To inform the public health community and all other sectors that contribute to population health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation commissioned the IOM to examine three major topics that influence the health of the public-measurement, laws, and funding. In this, the first of three reports, the IOM reviews current approaches for measuring the health of individuals and communities and suggests changes in the processes, tools, and approaches used to gather information about health outcomes and their determinants.”

“The IOM recommends developing an integrated and coordinated system in which all parties—including governmental and private sector partners at all levels—have access to timely and meaningful data to help foster individual and community awareness and action. “

Links to the report, report brief, and report release slides may be found here.

Related Articles

• Two Health Data Tools for Research and Surveillance : Health Indicators Warehouse and Catalogue of Surveillance Systems (jflahiff.wordpress.com)

Americans Have Higher Rates of Most Chronic Diseases Than Same-Age Counterparts in England

Americans Have Higher Rates of Most Chronic Diseases Than Same-Age Counterparts in England

From the March 9 2011 ScienceDaily news blog

ScienceDaily (Mar. 9, 2011) — Researchers have announced in the American Journal of Epidemiology ***that despite the high level of spending on healthcare in the United States compared to England, Americans experience higher rates of chronic disease and markers of disease than their English counterparts at all ages. Why health status differs so dramatically in these two countries, which share much in terms of history and culture, is a mystery….

…About the studies used in the article: Data were from the 1999-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys for the US (n=39,849) and the 2003-2006 Health Surveys for England (n=69,084).

 

 

*** For suggestions on how to get this article for free or at low cost, click here

National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (with online CE)

National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network

The National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network integrates and presents health exposure and data information data from a variety of national, state, and city sources. It is part of the Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Agency (CDC) which tracks and studies many of the exposures and health effects that may be related to environmental hazards.

On the Tracking Network, you can view maps, tables, and charts with data about:

• chemicals and other substances found in the environment,  through Web pages as Tracking air quality and Tracking Housing Conditions
• some chronic diseases and conditions through the Health Effects page
• the area where you live through Info by Location

The Resources links at the home page (right column) include

• Communications features as podcasts, inks to social media (Facebook, Twitter), and data sources
• Quick reports which summarize key information

Online Continuing Education (CE) credits are available  through NEHA e-learning.  All CE classes may be viewed for free.  Most CE credits are fee based, however some are free through the CDC and EPA.  ( Tracking 101 online training link at About Tracking Program)

 

 

 

Google Public Data Explorer Visualizes Your Data

Google Public Data Explorer Visualizes Your Data

From the official Google Blog item

Over the past two years, we’ve made public data easier to find, explore and understand in several ways, providing unemployment figures, population statistics and world development indicators in search results, and introducing the Public Data Explorer tool. Together with our data provider partners, we’ve curated 27 datasets including more than 300 data metrics. You can now use the Public Data Explorer to visualize everything from labor productivity (OECD) to Internet speed (Ookla) to gender balance in parliaments (UNECE) to government debt levels (IMF) to population density by municipality (Statistics Catalonia), with more data being added every week.***

Today, we’re opening the Public Data Explorer to your data. We’re making a new data format, the Dataset Publishing Language (DSPL), openly available, and providing an interface foranyone to upload their datasets. DSPL is an XML-based format designed from the ground up to support rich, interactive visualizations like those in the Public Data Explorer. The DSPL language and upload interface are available in Google Labs.

To upload a dataset, click on the “My Datasets” link on the left-hand side of the Public Data Explorer. Once imported, a dataset can be visualized, embedded in external websites, shared with others and published. If you’re an official provider, you can request that your datasets appear in the Public Data Explorer directory; please contact us to discuss this process.

With this new capability, we hope more datasets can come to life through Public Data Explorer visualisations and enable people to better understand the world around them and make more informed, data-driven decisions. Stay tuned for more datasets, visualization features and DSPL extensions in the future.

 

***Health related databases of note

• Outbreaks 1996-2009 Dataset

Chan EH, et al. (2010) Global capacity for emerging infectious disease detection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Catalogue of selected WHO-confirmed outbreaks (as reported in “Disease Outbreak News”), 1996-2009. This tool is meant to provide a visualization of the dataset used in this publication from the HealthMap Project (Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, http://www.healthmap.org)

• Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the U.S.

NCHHSTP powered by CDC WONDER

Sexually Transmitted Disease Morbidity Data from U.S. National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This dataset was prepared by Google based on data downloaded from CDC WONDER.

• Mortality in the U.S.
  NCHS, OAE powered by CDC WONDER

  Counts and rates of death by underlying cause of death, age, race, sex, and year. Data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) National Vital Statistics System at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), powered by CDC WONDER. This dataset was prepared by Google based on data downloaded from CDC WONDER.

• Cancer cases in the U.S.

CDC, NCI and NAACCR powered by CDC WONDER

Cancer cases by U.S. state, age group, gender and cancer site. Cancer statistics are produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), in collaboration with the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR). This dataset was prepared by Google based on data downloaded from CDC WONDER.

America’s Health a Mixed Bag: Report

America’s Health a Mixed Bag: Report
Life expectancy rates are up, but so are obesity levels, CDC says

From the February 16, 2011 Health Day news report

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 16 (HealthDay News) — U.S. officials on Wednesday released the annual state-of-the-nation’s health report and the news is mixed, with life expectancy rates on the rise but obesity levels still climbing.

On the positive side, life expectancy was up slightly in 2007, to 77.9 years from 76.8 years at the beginning of the decade.

And while women are still ahead of the game, gender and race gaps in longevity have narrowed, according to the report, compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It’s encouraging that life expectancy continues to increase, although at a very small pace, but as we’re living longer we’re living longer with disease,” said Dr. Patrick Remington, associate dean for public health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison. “Years added to your life expectancy are years with disease.”

Perhaps even more troubling, said experts, are climbing obesity rates, with two-thirds of adults now overweight or obese, up from 29.9 percent a decade ago. While obesity rates among 2- to 5-year-olds seem to be leveling off, rates among older children and teens are still increasing, the report showed.

“The overall trend for childhood obesity is upward, which is not a good sign for future obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer,” said Cheryl L. Perry, dean of the University of Texas School of Public Health Austin Regional Campus, part of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. “There may be some hope for the younger children, but it’s probably too soon to declare victory, since the 6- to 11-year-old rates also declined, but then increased substantially in the next wave.”

Other risk factors for chronic illnesses, including heart disease, aren’t looking too good, either.

“Obesity, diabetes and hypertension are really critical in terms of looking at the future health status of the U.S., and that news has not been good for a long time and it doesn’t look like it’s improving,” said Dr. Nancy Bennett, director of the University of Rochester Medical Center‘s Center for Community Health.

Heart disease and cancer remain the two leading killers, collectively accounting for nearly half of the 2.5 million deaths in the United States in 2007, 25 percent and 23 percent, respectively.

Among the report’s findings:

• Hypertension levels are on the rise, with 32.6 percent of the population suffering from high blood pressure in 2007-2008, as compared with 28.9 percent in 1999-2000.
• Twelve percent of U.S. adults are now diabetic, up from 8.5 percent in 1999.
• On the other hand, cholesterol levels are coming under control, probably because a quarter of U.S. adults aged 45 and over are now using the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins, a dramatic increase from just 2 percent in the 1988-1994 period. “The increase in statin use is pretty dramatic,” said Bernstein.
• Skyrocketing medical costs continue to be a problem, with more Americans than ever before delaying or simply foregoing medical care: 11 percent in 1997 to 15 percent in 2009. People skimping on prescription drugs went from 6 percent to 11 percent, and those missing out on needed dental care increased from 11 percent to 17 percent.
• More kids are moving to Medicaid (35 percent in 2009 versus 18 percent in 1999), and fewer are staying on private insurance. The good news is that fewer kids are uninsured: only 8 percent as compared with 12 percent a decade earlier.
• More children have skin allergies (10.7 percent, compared with 7.4 percent in the late 1990s), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (9 percent versus 6.5 percent) and food allergies (4.6 percent, up from 3.4 percent).
• Americans do seem to be moving more, with 18.8 percent reporting exercising, a marginal uptick from 18.1 percent in 2008 and a bigger increase from 15.1 percent in 2000, but experts said it’s still not enough. “It’s pretty discouraging,” Bennett noted.
• According to a new special section in the report, one-quarter of deaths in both the under-65 and over-65 age groups took place at home in 2007, up from one-sixth in 1989. Still, most deaths occurred out of the home, 36 percent in hospitals (down from 49 percent), and 22 percent in nursing homes and other facilities.
• Infant mortality has declined 2 percent from 2000.
• Half of middle-aged and older Americans are now having regular colonoscopies, up from one-third in 2000.
• The smoking rate among adults has largely stabilized, at about 21 percent, while smoking among teens has essentially stalled since 2004, at about 20 percent.

SOURCES: Amy Bernstein, Sc.D., chief, analytic studies branch, National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Nancy Bennett, M.D., director, Center for Community Health, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, N.Y.; Cheryl L. Perry, Ph.D., professor and dean, University of Texas School of Public Health Austin Regional Campus; Patrick Remington, M.D., associate dean, public health, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison; Feb. 16, 2011, CDC’s Health, United States, 2010

Institute of Medicine Report: Better measurement can improve U.S. health outcomes

Institute of Medicine  Report: Better measurement can improve U.S. health outcomes

Excerpts from the press release:

Despite medical care expenditures that are the highest of any industrialized nation, deficiencies in the way health information is collected and a lack of agreement on the best indicators by which to measure progress are hindering efforts to improve Americans’ health, according to a new national report.

Released in December by the Institute of Medicine, the report calls on the nation’s health leaders to develop a core, standardized set of indicators to integrate and align health data and health outcome measurement at the national, state and local levels. According to the report, numerous health indicator sets developed in recent years and deployed in different contexts make assessment and comparison difficult for policy-makers and other decision-makers by highlighting similar information in different ways….

The report committee’s vision of the factors that create health in populations — community-based factors and social and environmental determinants — is “very different” from the way the current U.S. health care delivery system is structured, said Gold, noting that the report calls on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to produce an annual report informing policy-makers, health leaders and the public about important trends and disparities in the social and environmental determinants that affect health.

“The public health community…shares a commonality of interests and insight as to what the true determinants of health are, and what this report tries to put into sharp relief is that we need to do a better job of measuring the variables that create and detract from health in this country, and that we need to move that measurement strategy away from traditional biomedical variables,” said Gold, who is a professor and chair of community health and social medicine at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at the City College of New York.

The report, “For the Public’s Health: The Role of Measurement in Action and Accountability,” also recommends that the United States adopt a single, summary measure of population health. Death rates have long been used as the standard measure of population health, the report said, but life expectancy by itself cannot capture information about the health-related quality of life associated with chronic illnesses and injuries. Summary measures of population health, such as health-adjusted life expectancy, capture an overall picture of the well-being of communities.

Moreover, the report recommends that HHS assign the National Center for Health Statistics a leadership role in a “renewed population-health information system” through better coordination and integration of the determinants of health. The report further recommends that the National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council — the federal body created as part of last year’s health reform law — update Congress annually on NCHS’ progress in assuming such a leadership role.

To ensure the public’s awareness of the quality, safety, efficiency and appropriateness of clinical care services delivered in their communities, the report calls on state and local public health agencies in each state to collaborate with clinical care delivery systems. Local performance reports about overuse, underuse and misuse should be made available for selected interventions, the report said, including preventive and diagnostic tests, procedures and treatment.

The report also recommends that HHS work with relevant federal, state and local public-sector and private-sector partners and stakeholders to develop a performance-measurement system that promotes accountability among governmental and private-sector organizations that have responsibilities for protecting and improving population health at local, state and national levels.

Authoring committee member Martin J. Sepulveda, MD, FACP, called the report a “wake-up call” to the health care delivery system, policy-makers, governmental public health leaders, employers and other payers.

“It tells policy-makers that you can control the ‘mix’ part of total cost by focusing on the medical care delivery system — namely the proportions of controlled versus complicated people with chronic diseases, but the avalanche of new people with chronic diseases will continue to flood the system and will keep total cost high,” Sepulveda, IBM fellow and vice president for integrated health services at IBM Corp. in Somers, N.Y., told The Nation’s Health.

The report also tells governmental public health that it needs to “think differently” about its role in the health crisis and forge new relationships with the health care delivery system to break down barriers and create and use shared pools of data to inform policy-makers and consumers about critical performance matters such as overuse, underuse and misuse of medical care, Sepulveda said.

“It needs to play a key role in helping people know where health care value lies and who is and isn’t delivering it in their communities,” Sepulveda said.

Sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the report is the first of three on public health strategies to improve health. Reports examining public health and the law and public health and financing are due to be released within the next year.

For more information or to read the report, visit www.iom.edu/reports.

 

Federal Report Details Health and Economic Status of Older Americans

 

Federal Report Details Health and Economic Status of Older Americans

Today’s older Americans enjoy longer lives and better health than did previous generations. These and other trends are reported in Older Americans 2010: Key Indicators of Well-Being, a unique, comprehensive look at aging in the United States from the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics.It is divided into five subject areas: population, economics, health status, health risks and behaviors, and health care. A link to a powerpoint slide of charts may be found here.

Trust for America’s Health

Trust for America’s Health is a “non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority”.”By focusing on PREVENTION, PROTECTION, and COMMUNITIES, TFAH is leading the fight to make disease prevention a national priority, from Capitol Hill to Main Street. We know what works. Now we need to build the resolve to get it done.”

Trust for America’s Health includes the following

• How Healthy Is Your State? (home page link) where you can select a state from the drop-down menu. Statistics include adult health indicators (as cancer and asthma), child and adolescent health facts (as pre-term labor), obesity and diabetes rates, and program spending
  
• Current Report topics include the flu, liver diseases, preventative health care, how public dollars are spent on health care, and keeping America’s food supply safe
• Advice is given on Advocacy issues, including writing representatives and joining grassroot organizations
• The Resource Library provides links to organization and other Web sites in topics as Health Reform Legislation, Health Disparities, Environmental Health, and Food Safety

Stats of the States

These health related statistics are collected by the US  National Center for Health Statistics.

Click here for Ohio’s Fact Sheet.

A good listing of additional NCHS statistical materials may be found here.

One library’s guide to finding health statistics may be found here.

Free Online Health Statistics Courses

In the spirit of “back to school”, a sampling of free online health statistics courses

Health Statistics on the Web: It’s as Easy as …1,2,3! (National Network of Libraries of Medicine)

This hands-on course focuses on the location, selection, and effective use of statistics relevant to health on the local, state, national, and international levels. The importance and relevance of health statistics in various contexts will be discussed. Includes a PowerPoint presentation,  a list of  selected Web sites, and sets of exercises. ”
Geared towards medical librarians.

Finding and Using Health Statistics (US National Library of Medicine)

This course describes the range of available health statistics, identifies their sources and helps you understand how to use information about their structure as you search.Links to numerous examples.
Coursework is divided into two main parts:

• About Health Statistics describes these sources and explores how they are created and
• Finding Health Statistics presents strategies you can use to successfully search for the material

How Do You Find Health-Related Statistics (University of North Carolina)

One in a series of modules (left column) on understanding and locating health statistics.

Finding Health Statistics Online (University of Michigan)

Tutorial outlines the major sources of public health statistics and presents a structured search process.

Wondering why you can’t locate health statistics on a certain subject?

The University of Chicago outlines the Top 5 Challenges to Finding Data.