Statistical Information by Subject

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

GIS data sets can be useful for many purposes. They are used primarily to display data geographically. In public health, applications for GIS are becoming more accessible as geo-coded health data and environmental exposure data increasingly become available, and new and easier-to-use GIS software is developed. The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry (ATSDR) uses GIS to monitor the health of persons living near hazardous waste sites, and to identify areas of potential concern resulting from accidental release of chemicals in the environment. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses GIS for disease surveillance, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses it to support risk assessment, environmental justice analysis, and ecological assessments.

GIS and Public Health – National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), CDC
<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/gis.htm>

Injury Maps - National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC
<http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/maps/>
Injury Maps, CDC Injury Center's interactive mapping system, provides access to the geographic distribution of injury-related mortality rates in the United States. Injury Maps allows you to create county-level and state-level maps of age-adjusted mortality rates for the entire United States and for individual states.

Geographic Analysis Tool for Health & Environmental Research (GATHER) - Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
<http://gis.cdc.gov/>
GATHER is an online spatial data access system that provides members of the public health community access to spatial data that is pertinent to the analysis and exploration of public health issues.

EnviroMapper Storefront – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
<http://www.epa.gov/enviro/html/em/index.html>
View federal, state, and local information about environmental conditions and features in an area of your choice.

Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care – Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth Medical School
<http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/>
The Atlas project focuses on how medical resources are distributed and used in the United States.

Cancer Mortality Maps & Graphs – National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH
<http://www3.cancer.gov/atlasplus/>
Provides interactive maps, graphs (which are accessible to the blind and visually-impaired), text, tables and figures showing geographic patterns and time trends of cancer death rates for the time period 1950-1994 for more than 40 cancers.

Hospital and Health Care Records

National Hospital Discharge and Ambulatory Surgery Data
<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/hdasd/listpubs.htm>

Medical Expenditure Panel Survey [MEPS]
<http://meps.ahrq.gov/>

HCUP
<http://www.ahrq.gov/data/hcup/>

Center for Mental Health Services [CMHS]
<http://www.mentalhealth.org/cmhs/MentalHealthStatistics/>

Mortality and Morbidity Data

Mortality Data from the National Vital Statistics System
<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/dvs/mortdata.htm>
Includes mortality and cause of death data based on death certificates. The CDC assumed responsibility for collecting and publishing national data on notifiable diseases in 1961. As of 1998, 52 infectious diseases were notifiable at the national level. Currently, there are about 56. (see <http://www.cdc.gov/epo/dphsi/phs/infdis2004.htm>) .

National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS)
<http://www.cdc.gov/epo/dphsi/nndsshis.htm>
The statistical summary of notifiable diseases in the United States is published to accompany each volume of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. These surveillance data are presented by the week they were reported to CDC by public health officials in state and territorial health departments.

MMWR Search
<http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/mmwrsrch.htm>

Public Health Preparedness

Bioterriorism and Emerging Infections Site – Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
<http://www.bioterrorism-uab.ahrq.gov/>
This site has been designed to provide resource information and continuing education about rare infections and potential bioterrorist agents.

Emergency Preparedness and Response – Centers for Disease Control and Preparedness
<http://www.bt.cdc.gov/>
Includes links to additional information on agents, diseases, and other threats.

Preparation and Planning
<http://www.bt.cdc.gov/planning/index.asp>

Pulsenet
<http://www.cdc.gov/pulsenet>
This branch of CDC conducts active surveillance for laboratory-confirmed cases of seven bacterial and two parasitic organisms.

Chemical Warfare Agents – National Library of Medicine
<http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/chemicalwarfare.html>
Includes links to government and non-governmental web sites, information about specific chemical agents with health effects, and pre-formulated searches of Toxline.

MedlinePlus Biodefense and Bioterriorism - National Library of Medicine
<http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/biodefenseand
bioterrorism.html>

MedlinePlus Chemical Weapons - National Library of Medicine
<http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/chemicalweapons.html>

Toxicology and Environmental Health

TOXNET – Specialized Information Services, National Library of Medicine
<http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/>
A variety of databanks and databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, and related areas including TRI, Toxics Release Inventory, and HSDB, Hazardous Substances Data Bank.

IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System) – Environmental Protection Agency
<http://www.epa.gov/iris/>
A collection of computer files covering individual chemicals with human health effects that may result from exposure to various chemicals in the environment.

EnviroFacts
<http://www.epa.gov/enviro/>
An online tool to access multiple EPA databases.

Browse EPA Topics
<http://www.epa.gov/ebtpages/alphabet.html>
Provides access to EPA data by “key topics,” including Air, Food Safety, Forests, Pesticides, Wastes, Public Drinking Water Systems, and Water Quality Monitoring.

NIOSH Safety and Health Topic: Chemical Safety
<http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/chemical-safety/
default.html>
Lists NIOSH databases and other resources including Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards (NPG).

California – Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
<http://www.oehha.ca.gov>

EXTONET
<http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/ghindex.html>

Other Resources

Disability Data - U.S. Census Bureau
<http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/disability/disability.html>

Injuries, Illnesses and Fatalities – Bureau of Labor Statistics
<http://www.bls.gov/iif/>
Provides data on illnesses, injuries on the job, and data on worker fatalities.

FactFinder - U. S. Census Bureau
<http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet>

TransStats - Bureau of Transportation Statistics
<http://www.transtats.bts.gov/>

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