Data Sources and Data Tools
Data Sources and Data Tools offers an introduction to the basic concepts of strategically finding and evaluating publically available data for health analysis. Leading data providers and sources, at the local, state, and national levels, are introduced an
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Data Sources and Data Tools Edward Mensah and Johanna L. Goderre
Abstract Data Sources and Data Tools offers an introduction to the basic concepts of strategically finding and evaluating publically available data for health analysis. Leading data providers and sources, at the local, state, and national levels, are introduced and reviewed as exemplars. In the evolving and dynamic universe of available health data, a variety of statistical tools and techniques as well as methods to organize complex work schemes are necessary for data acquisition, management, and interpretation. Keywords Data • Information • Big data • Qualitative data • Quantitative data • Open data • White hat testing • Application programming interfaces • Health information exchange • Data sources • Data science
Learning Objectives 1. List and discuss the five characteristics of good data. 2. List and discuss principles to strategically evaluate data sources and data. 3. Describe publicly available datasets and tools at different levels of granularity. 4. Describe the process of preparing a data set for ad hoc analysis.
E. Mensah, PhD (*) Health Policy and Administration Division, School Of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1603 West Taylor Street, M/C 923, Chicago, IL 60613, USA e-mail: [email protected] J.L. Goderre, MPH Health Policy and Administration Division, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1603 W. Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 60612-4394, USA e-mail: [email protected] J.A. Magnuson, P.C. Fu, Jr. (eds.), Public Health Informatics and Information Systems, Health Informatics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-4237-9_7, © Springer-Verlag London 2014
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E. Mensah and J.L. Goderre
Introduction Thanks to technological advances, public health organizations can collect, manage, store, and use data about programs, clients, and systems more easily. As organizations are increasingly called upon to deliver measurable and effective services, qualitative and quantitative facts and statistics - data - have become a high priority in every office. When meaningfully aggregated, contextualized, and prioritized, these data form the building blocks of important messages - information - about the public health system. Information Systems (IS) constitute the physical, human, and electronic infrastructures that support the use of data in the service of discovery. As data floods in from local and global initiatives, perhaps doubling in quantity every few months, many industries struggle to find tools that will produce insight and develop focus to improve individual and population health and quality of life. This problem exists, in part, because not all data is high quality - it may not be timely, accurate, sufficient, relevant, or cost-effective. Big Data is data that exceeds the limits of human or computing capacity when released in great quantities with rapid turnover and increasing complexity, and requires novel processing methods. Legal, ethical, and regulatory responsibilities are also attached to data at all stag
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