LibGuides: PBHL-P506 Public Health and Community-Focused Leadership: Data Sources

Key Data Sources

Demographic & Socioeconomic Data

County Health Rankings is a single platform that provides county-level data on a wide range of health outcomes, heath factors, quality of life indicators, and insurance information, among other things. It's excellent for quickly grasping a community's overall health profile and comparing it to state and national benchmarks.

Census Reporter, Data Commons, and Open Data Network are user-friendly interfaces that pull from Census data.

County Health Rankings
Source of public health data at the county-level
United States Census Data
Explore Census data
Data Commons
User-friendly interface that pulls from Census data. An open data initiative from Google, which organizes the world’s publicly available information.
Census Reporter
User-friendly interface that pulls from Census data. Place profiles and comparison pages provide an interface for navigating data, including visualizations for a more useful first look.
Open Data Network
Visualization tool for open data. Scroll down to get city and county-level profiles and maps.

Local Data Mapping Tools

These are excellent for visualizing and localizing various health and social determinants of health data. They often overlay data on maps, which helps quickly identify geographic disparities and patterns.

PolicyMap
PolicyMap is an online data and mapping tool that gives access to over 15,000 indicators related to housing, crime, mortgages, health, jobs, demographics and education. Data are available at all common geographies (address, block group, census tract, zip code, county, city, state, MSA) as well as unique geographies like school districts and political boundaries. You may also upload your own address level data and share your data and maps with others. Share your opinion! Short survey.

SparkMap
Uses county-level data from the American Community Survey and other data sources to generate community needs assessment reports

Hospital Data

These are important for understanding the hospital's performance and financial context within the CHNA. They provide quantitative data directly related to healthcare service delivery and quality

American Hospital Directory
Paid version. Use the login and password provided. Access is restricted to one user at a time. Logoff when you are finished.
Hospital Compare (Medicare)
Find and compare information about the quality of care at over 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals, including over 130 Veterans Administration (VA) medical centers and over 50 military hospitals, across the country.
Leapfrog Hospital Survey
The Leapfrog Hospital Survey is a free, annual survey that assesses hospital performance on national measures of safety, quality, and efficiency of both inpatient and outpatient care.

Other Data Sources and Mapping Tools

AHRQ State Dashboard
From the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)
The BRFSS collects data on health behaviors, physical activity, diet, hypertension and preventive safety measures among US adults.
See Big Data for Epidemiology for information on data collection, design features, strengths and limitations, and practical tips for statistical analysis using SAS.
CDC Wonder
Provides access to a wide array of CDC epidemiological data
Disability and Health Data System
Interactive platform for state-level, disability-specific data and health indicators
Health Disparity and Outcome Data
View county level health statistics, charts, and maps by data topic across the health disparities continuum.
PLACES: Local data for better health
CDC product that provides health data for small areas (e.g., zip codes and census tracts) across the United States
SAVI Tools
Data about Central Indiana communities, including mapping tools
State Health Facts
From the Kaiser Family Foundation

Statista
Provides data on a variety of disciplines. Data points presented in multiple formats including reports, graphs, infographics, and PowerPoint slides.