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Locating and Understanding County and State-based Data. Barbara Garland, MPH, PhD May 2003. State Center For Health Statistics. www.schs.state.nc.us/SCHS/healthstats/pocketguide/2001/index. State Center’s as Sources for Information. Demographic, Social and Economic Indicators
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Locating and Understanding County and State-based Data Barbara Garland, MPH, PhD May 2003
State Center For Health Statistics • www.schs.state.nc.us/SCHS/healthstats/pocketguide/2001/index
State Center’s as Sources for Information • Demographic, Social and Economic Indicators • Work, Farm, Home, and School Statistics • Social, Welfare and Health Data
Information, cont. • Pregnancy Outcome Statistics • Morbidity and Mortality Statistics • Health Care Resources Data
Information, cont. • County specific data • Demographic, Economic and Health Resources Data • Selected Health indicators
Economic Research Service, USDA (ERS) • www.ers.usda.gov/statefacts/NC
ERS, USDA • Statewide population income and employment data by Metro and Nonmetro • Farm characteristics,1992 and 1997 • Key topics
ERS Cont: • Examples of Key Topics • Diet, Consumption and Health • Food Safety
Child Advocacy Groups • www.ncchild.org/data
Child Advocacy: Example • Interactive County and State Database • County Profile Trends in Child Well-being • Hardcopy and on-line PDF. County-level charts comparing counties and key indicators.
Vital statistics are: • Collected in every county • Transmitted to state and national data centers • Aggregated (merged) • Include births, deaths, marriages, divorces and leading causes of mortality.
Vital statistics are: • Housed in county and state offices of vital statistics, state health department • Vital statistics are provided as numbers and rates. • numerator - those with the characteristic, disease or injury. • denominator - the population-at-risk.
A Rate is: • Number of events in a given period of time divided by the number of people at risk of experiencing that event during that period. • Time = one, three or five years • Expressed as 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 • Depends on frequency of event
The infant mortality rate is given as the number of infant deaths per thousand live births. Example:Infant Mortality Rate, 1999,Robbins County, US 68 deaths = 8743 live births 0.007777 X 1000 or 7.8 /1000. This figure can be compared to infant mortality rates for the state, nation and other countries.
Rates • May be age, sex, race or disease specific. • Are affected by population size. • Are often presented as a 3 or 5 year rate.
Mortality ratesEqual the number of people dying divided by the total number in the population over a certain time period.
Ways to look at mortality rates • The unadjustedor crude annual death rate is the number of residentdeaths divided by the number of people living in the area on July 1 of that year. • The adjusted mortality rate takes into consideration the age, race and sex distribution of the population thereby making it useful for comparisons between population groups.
The adjusted rate is based on the United States 1970 population.Adjusted mortality rate = death rate in each group if the age distribution was the same. Example:California has a higher proportion of young people than Florida which has a high older population. Without adjusting for age, comparisons of incidence and mortality rates would be meaning less.
Mortality from any specific disease or injury is relatively rare. • About .00029% of all women die from breast cancer each year. • Expressed as per 100,000 = 29 deaths per 100,000. • For more common events such as the total mortality rate or infant mortality per 1000 may be used.
Prevalence rate • The number of people with a disease at a point in time divided by the total number of people in the group. • Represents a cross section of the population at one point in time. • Most used to indicate need for health services.
Incidence rateThenumber of new cases divided by the total number of people at risk of the disease within a specific period of time.