Using public health data to promote population/community health

Introduction

Public health data are important for many reasons. They can help us understand the population and how it changes over time, which helps us plan health care services and interventions that will make a difference in people’s lives. Public health data also provide information about various risk factors associated with disease development or exacerbation. Finally, public health information can help identify trends that may indicate unsafe behaviors—for example, unhealthy diet or lack of exercise—or they might suggest ways to promote better lifestyles like healthier diets or more active lifestyles among entire communities or groups.

Epidemiology

Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events. Epidemiologists investigate how these factors affect the health status of populations, communities and individuals within those populations.

Epidemiology is a cornerstone of public health because it provides information about what might happen to people if something changes in their environment or lifestyle. This can help us develop programs to prevent disease, improve quality of life and improve our understanding about causes and cures for various diseases.

It’s also important because epidemiological studies have contributed directly or indirectly to many advances in medicine such as vaccines against smallpox (1796), cholera (1854), yellow fever (1893) influenza A viruses(1911) polio(1913).

Demography

Demography is the study of human populations. Demographers use data to understand population growth, distribution, and change. They also use data to understand the characteristics of a population (such as age or gender) and its social processes that influence these dynamics.

Demographers have long been interested in how health issues impact populations because they can lead to disease outbreaks or other public health crises—for example:

• Influenza epidemics caused by H1N1 (swine flu) in 2009 led directly to about 17 000 deaths worldwide;

• AIDS has killed over 35 million people since 1980;

• Tuberculosis kills more than 3 million people every year around the globe;

Behavioral risk factor surveillance system

The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is a telephone survey that is conducted by state health departments to track health behaviors. The BRFSS has been going on since 1972 and is the only source of health behavior data for all states.

The BRFSS collects self-reported information about current smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity/overweight status, physical inactivity and unhealthy dietary patterns (i.e., low fruit & vegetable intake). While these measures help researchers understand how populations are doing with regard to these risk factors over time, they also provide information about who is at greater risk for developing chronic diseases like heart disease or stroke.

Bureau of vital statistics

The Bureau of Vital Statistics (BVS) is the state agency responsible for recording births, deaths and marriages in New York State. BVS collects data on these events from all counties. All reported information is confidential; however, there are public databases that can be searched by county name or ZIP code.

The BVS website offers several resources to help you learn more about your local area:

• Births and Deaths – Find out what’s happening with births, deaths and marriages in your community using this tool! You can also search for specific demographic characteristics such as ethnicity or age group on this page.

• Marriages – Discover how many couples have gotten married recently at your local courthouse! There are also instructions here if you want to get married yourself!

Electronic health records (EHR)

Electronic health records (EHRs) are a source of public health data that can be used to track the spread of disease and monitor interventions. EHRs can also be used for other purposes, such as tracking the effectiveness of public health programs.

It’s also easier to generalize results that come from large populations.

When you’re surveying a large number of people, it’s easier to generalize results that come from large populations. This is because larger samples have more data points and thus provide better accuracy.

In addition to being able to make accurate predictions about how many people will respond positively or negatively (and thus what your intervention might do), there are also other advantages in using public health data:

• The size of your sample makes it possible for you to see trends over time; if one intervention only works certain ways, then you can use this information as an indicator that something else needs changing before things start going downhill again.

• Having lots of data lets researchers map out connections between different factors (like income level) within urban areas—they’ll be able to identify where these correlations occur most often so they can focus future efforts on those areas instead!

Some important sources of public health data are registries, surveys, and EHRs.

One of the most important sources of public health data is registries. Registries are collections of data from a population, such as birth records or death certificates. They can also be used to track disease trends and monitor health outcomes over time.

Surveys provide information about individuals or their families in surveys by asking questions about their lifestyle habits, physical conditions, or mental health issues; the results are useful for understanding how people experience illness and what makes them healthy or unhealthy.

EHRs contain medical records on individual patients that doctors use for diagnosis and treatment planning purposes—they’re often called “electronic health records” (EHR).

Conclusion

We’ve covered a lot of ground here, but we hope you’re now feeling more confident about how to go about using public health data to promote population health. As you can see, there are many sources for data that can be used for such purposes—and the benefits are many. We encourage everyone to continue exploring these possibilities, as well as others that may not yet have been mentioned here!