Lyman Beecher Brooks Library: Public Health Research: Data & Public Health

Learning to Deal With Data

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Data and Public Health

High quality health data is crucial to inform policies, budgets and plans for improved health access and impact....

-World Health Organization (WHO), Health Data as a Global Public Good

Not all data is good data. Medical data, in particular, has high ethical and privacy standards it must meet. WHO lists the following as necessary when using data for Public Health analysis:

Effective: the use of health data should have a clear and transparent aim to improve public health. Health data sharing should be timely and as open, transparent and inclusive as is possible, build on existing good practices, adopt common standards to encourage interoperability and reduce unnecessary duplication. Any approach to health data use should improve the quality and reliability / integrity of the use of data and apply the FAIR principles to ensure data is findable, available, interoperable and reusable.

Ethical: the use of health data and any data governance solution must uphold the highest standards of data protection and respect for human rights, balancing the trade-offs between individual rights to privacy with the collective benefits of open and transparent health data.

Equitable: the use of health data should recognise and balance the needs of all stakeholders. This requires equitable and inclusive approaches to support data collection, generation, access, use and a fair sharing of the benefits that arise from the use of data. The people and communities about whom data is gathered, and who are affected by its use should be actively involved in creating an equitable governance model to promote the achievement of public health goals as outlined in the UNSDG Human Rights Based Approach.

Common Data Types in Public Health Research
From the National Institute of Health, lists data types and how they can be used: quantitative, qualitative, primary source, secondary source.
HealthMap
HealthMap brings together disparate data sources, including online news aggregators, eyewitness reports, expert-curated discussions and validated official reports, to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health.

Social Explorer
This database provides demographic data from U.S. sources including the Decennial Census, American Community Survey (ACS), County Business Patterns, Population Estimates, LEHD and more. Many of these data sets are available at detailed geographic levels, down to a few city blocks. It also includes World Development Indicators from the World Bank, European Statistics, the UK and Canadian Censuses from 2011, and religion data from Ireland (1911-2001).

The Opportunity Atlas
The Opportunity Atlas is an initial release of social mobility data, the result of a collaboration between researchers at the Census Bureau, Harvard University, and Brown University. The objective of the Opportunity Atlas is to measure the average outcomes (e.g., earnings) of children who grow up in each neighborhood in America, by demographic subgroup (race, gender, and parental income).
U.S. Census Data
Data from the U.S. government on people and the economy. Open data for public use.

Health Statistics

Virginia Department of Health Data Portal
This data portal was developed to provide an access point for health-related data for Virginia. This portal is a comprehensive source for community health assessment, public, and population health data. Each data portal page provides interactive data at the most granular level available.
Virginia Cancer Dashboards
The Virginia Cancer Dashboards are a collection of individual dashboards providing cancer data by locality, health district, sex, race, and cancer site. The dashboards demonstrate the burden of cancer incidence and mortality in Virginia. They cover aggregate data for the years 2015 - 2019.
Virginia Epidemiology Reports
The Epidemiology Reports section includes reports from epidemiologists and data scientists at the Virginia Department of Health on important public health topics.
Heat-Related Illness Surveillance
This dashboard is updated on weekdays (Monday – Friday) in July and August, and weekly on Mondays in May, June, and September.

Active Bacterial Core surveillance (ABCs)
Bact Facts Interactive allows you to view data from Active Bacterial Core surveillance (ABCs), a part of CDC’s Emerging Infections Program (EIP). ABCs is laboratory- and population-based surveillance that monitors invasive bacterial infections that cause bloodstream infections, sepsis, and meningitis in persons living in the community.
Agency for Health Care Research and Quality Data Tools
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) mission is to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable, and to work within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and with other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used.
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Data
Data and statistics topics, tools, and related organizations at CDC. Includes the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data.
Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
The CMS Program Statistics (CPS) includes high-level summary reports focused on Medicare populations, use, and payment, as well as counts for Medicare-certified institutional and non-institutional providers.
Harvard Dataverse
The Harvard Dataverse Repository is a free data repository open to all researchers from any discipline, both inside and outside of the Harvard community, where you can share, archive, cite, access, and explore research data. Each individual Dataverse collection is a customizable collection of datasets (or a virtual repository) for organizing, managing, and showcasing datasets.
Healthcare-Associated Infections - Community Interface (HAIC)
The healthcare-associated infection component of CDC’s Emerging Infections Program (EIP) engages a network of state health departments and their academic medical center partners to help answer critical questions about emerging HAI threats, advanced infection tracking methods, and antibiotic resistance in the United States.
Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUPnet)
The data tool provides healthcare statistics and information for hospital inpatient and emergency department settings, as well as population-based healthcare data on counties. Generate tables and graphs on national and regional statistics and trends for community hospitals in the United States.
IPUMS Health Surveys
IPUMS Health Surveys: NHIS is a harmonized set of data covering more than 50 years (1963-present) of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The NHIS is the principal source of information on the health of the U.S. population, covering such topics as general health status, the distribution of acute and chronic illness, functional limitations, access to and use of medical services, insurance coverage, and health behaviors (such as exercise, diet, and tobacco and alcohol consumption). On average, the survey covers 100,000 persons in 45,000 households each year. The IPUMS NHIS facilitates cross-time comparisons of these invaluable survey data by coding variables identically across time. With IPUMS NHIS microdata (information about individual persons and households), researchers can use their desired set of variables to create tabulations and multivariate analyses tailored to their particular questions.

Mintel
Every Report contains a comprehensive overview of the market size, including a five-year forecast, brand share, category trends, consumer attitudes and behaviors, and analysis on what’s working, what’s not working, and what’s coming next. Users will be able to dive into specific consumer survey questions to identify key demographics or target markets using the interactive databook and create customized tables and presentations.

NCHHSTP AtlasPlus
National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP) AtlasPlus. an interactive tool that gives users the ability to create customized tables, maps, and charts using nearly 20 years of CDC’s surveillance data on HIV, viral hepatitis, STD, and TB. AtlasPlus also provides access to indicators on social determinants of health (SDOH) allowing users to view social and economic data in conjunction with surveillance data for each disease.
State and Territorial Health Department Websites
Maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, links to all health departments in the U.S.

Global Burden of Disease (GBD)
Maintained by The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study provides a comprehensive picture of mortality and disability across countries, time, age, and sex. It quantifies health loss from hundreds of diseases, injuries, and risk factors, so that health systems can be improved and disparities eliminated.
Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx)
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) maintains this database of surveys, censuses, vital statistics, and other health-related data. It’s the place to start your health data search.
Health Nutrition and Population Statistics
Maintained by the World Bank, this data contains key health, nutrition and population statistics gathered from a variety of international sources.
OECD Health Statistics
The OECD Health Database offers the most comprehensive source of comparable statistics on health and health systems across OECD countries. It is an essential tool to carry out comparative analyses and draw lessons from international comparisons of diverse health systems.
World Health Organization (WHO) Data
WHO's World Health Data Hub is a comprehensive digital platform for global health data. It provides end-to-end solutions to collect, store, analyze, and share data that is timely, reliable, and actionable.