Research Guides: Politics of Public Health: Health Data

Data (Greatest Hits!)

Area Resource File (ARF)--The ARF is a database of health resources data, measured at the county level for over 6,000 indicators. The information includes measures of employment in various health professions; availability of health facilities; and frequency of utilization; hospital and Medicare expenditures. The database is also accessible in the Data Center.
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)--The BRFSS was established by the Centers for Disease Control to provide data on personal behaviors that present health risks (e.g. alcohol and tobacco consumption, exercise patterns, dietary issues). The site provides both time-series data at the national and state levels for various categories of "behavioral risk" and also microdata files from which the national and state estimates are produced.
Cancer Statistics Review (CSR)--This site is hosted by the National Cancer Institute. The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (SEER) allows access to numerous cancer statistics and databases as well as to some limited online analysis.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)--The website for the CDC includes a section devoted to data and statistics at both the national and state levels. The CDC's A-Z topic index is also useful for locating quantitative information on particular topics.
CDC Wonder--This site is hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and is a portal to numerous studies concerning health-related topics such as AIDS/STDs, risk behaviors (the Behavioral Risk Surveillance System), mortality and natality statistics. There are several online data tools as well as a link to the SEER database.
Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)--The DHS is a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development to promote better gathering of survey data on health issues pertaining to family life and reproductive health in developing countries. Note that registration and application are required to access survey data files.
Georgia Division of Public Health--The GDPH is an excellent source for public health data as it relates specifically to the state of Georgia.
Health in the United States--Health in the United States is produced by the National Center for Health Statistics and is a yearbook of statistics on health indicators. Data from tables in the HUS are available in both .pdf and Excel. Note that data coverage at the state level is more limited than that for the national level.
Health, Nutrition, and Population Statistics (HNPStats)--HNPStats is a World Bank site with much international/comparative time-series data on health indicators, as well as on various economic and demographic/population measures. The Data Query System may be particularly helpful. Bulk downloads of HNPStats data are available at http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/health-nutrition-and-population-statistics. EdStats is part of the Bank's Data Catalog.
HIV/AIDS Surveillance Data Base--The HIV/AIDS Surveillance Database contains data on estimates of HIV/AIDS prevalence and is, to quote the website, "a compilation of information from those studies appearing in the medical and scientific literature, presented at international conferences, and appearing in the press."
Human Mortality Database (HMD)--The HMD (which requires a free registration) contains data tables with age and gender breakdowns for mortality and life expectancy in many countries (largely from the OECD). The site also provides links to related external sites.
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)--The NCHS, which is part of the CDC, contains much data on various health indicators at both national and state levels. The Data Warehouse may be of particular interest, as it provides access to public-use microdata from surveys such as the National Health Interview Survey. The National Vital Statistics System may also be of interest for data and historical reports on births, deaths, and marriages.
OECD Health Data--This database contains time-series data on a wide range of indicators of health status, health expenditures and policies, and other health-related information and is available on workstations in EDC. Coverage is from 1960 on, depending on the variable. Much of the data are also available on-line via the OECD iLibrary.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA)--SAMHDA, which is hosted by the ICPSR, provides "ready access to substance abuse and mental health research data." The archive contains data for survey series such as the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of the Lifestyles And Values Of Youth.
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)--UNICEF is a great source for cross-national health-related data on children. Another good site for child health data is ChildStats.
World Health Organization (WHO) Global Health Atlas--The WHO's Global Health Atlas contains a very useful Data Query System with country-level time-series data on health resources, disease prevalence, and basic health indicators.
World Health Organization Mortality Database--The WHO's Mortality Database provides aggregated mortality counts and cause-of-death statistics and (very large) raw data files for more advanced analysis.
World Health Organization Global Health Observatory (GHO)--The Global Health Observatory is a great source of data on numerous international/cross-national health-related topics. The site also contains many links to other sources of cross-national health data, such as the GHO Data Repository.
World Population Prospects--This database is produced by the United Nations' Population Division and contains cross-national data on vital statistics (e.g. birth and death rates, maternal mortality, population by age and gender).