Population Health

CTSA Community Engagement Resource Guide

A community-engaged research approach can enable researchers and community partners to conduct research to improve health. 

• Find national, state, and regional health data
• Understand health status and issues in Massachusetts communities
• Learn more about community-engaged research
• Develop proposals for future work
• Information on community-engaged research training
• Tips to understanding statistics
• Examples of community programs with evidence that they work
• Research ethics 

Research Resources from the Researcher Tools, Services and Support Resource Guide 

• Research Resources
• Clinical Population Health Research (CPHR)
• Statistics Resources

Open Data & Data Sharing on the Open Access Resource Guide

• Open Data Resources
• Data Journals
• Registries and Lists
• Publicly Available Health and Social Science Data Collections
• Other Sources for Data

Worldwide Statistics

• The World Health Organization Global Health Observatory (GHO) - WHO's gateway to health-related statistics from around the world.
• OECD Statistics Portal - Statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Including a dedicated OECD Health Statistics section.
• United Nations Statistical Division - Compiles and disseminates global statistical information, develops standards and norms for statistical activities, and supports countries' efforts to strengthen their national statistical systems.

United States Statistics

• America's Health Rankings (United Health Foundation) - Combines individual measures of several health determinants with the resultant health outcomes into one, comprehensive view of the health of a state.
• Explore Census Data (US Census Bureau) - Search and analyze demographic and economic information about the United States and its communities using a variety of methods.
• American Hospital Directory - Statistics for non-federal, short-term, acute care hospitals summarized by state.
• Best Hospitals (U.S. News and World Report) - Hospital rankings both by specialty and area. From news source.
• Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (CDC) - The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is the world's largest, on-going telephone health survey system. 
• CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) Data Navigator - CMS claims and cost data.
• County Health Rankings & Roadmaps - Provides county-level maps on access to care, demographic information, environmental health, and vital statistics.
• Data.gov - The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the executive branch of the federal government.
• Disability Statistics - Online Resource for U.S. Disability Statistics from Cornell University.
• Food Environment Atlas (U.S. Department of Agriculture) - County-level data on food choices, health and well-being, and community characteristics.
• H-CUPnet (AHRQ) - Data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). It provides access to health statistics and information on hospital inpatient and emergency department utilization.
• HealthData.gov (HHS) - Datasets, tools, and applications using data about health and healthcare in the United States.
• National Center for Health Statistics (CDC) - A comprehensive collection of health statistics collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control including numbers of births and deaths and various surveys including The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Use FastStats for a quick lookup of statistics by topic.
• National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP) AtlasPlus - Quick access to nearly 20 years of CDC’s surveillance data on HIV, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and tuberculosis (TB). Users can also view social and economic data in conjunction with HIV, viral hepatitis, STDs, and TB infections.
• National Center for Education Statistics (U.S. Department of Education) - A source of information from NCES, the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations.
• National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) (Previously WebCASPAR) (National Science Foundation) - A large body of statistical data resources for science and engineering (S&E) at U.S. academic institutions. WebCASPAR emphasizes S&E, but its data resources also provide information on non-S&E fields and higher education in general.
• Neighborhood Atlas (University of Wisconsin) - Maps the Area Deprivation Index per Census block group/neighborhood and allows for rankings of neighborhoods by socioeconomic status disadvantage in a region of interest (eg. state or national level)
• State Health Facts (Kaiser Family Foundation) - statistics on health topics by state
• Quickfacts (U.S. Census Bureau) - State and county "quick facts."

Massachusetts Statistics

• Massachusetts State Data Center (UMass Amherst) - A program of the UMass Donahue Institute's Economic and Public Policy Research Unit. Part of the Census Bureau’s State Data Center Program, provides an extensive collection of census data in Massachusetts, New England, and the U.S.
• Massachusetts Office of Data Management and Outcomes Assessment - Massachusetts ODMOA facilitates and coordinates the collection, access to, and use of public health data in order to monitor and improve population health. (Formerly MassCHIP.)