Abstract
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, launched a data visualization initiative, Health, United States Spotlight. NCHS also maintains a data visualization gallery on its website with the latest data on current topics shown in infographics for easy access and interpretation. The Vital Statistics Rapid Release (VSRR) program uses preliminary data to provide timely information for surveillance; the latest release covers July–September 2015. NCHS Associate for Science Jennifer Madans received the Population Association of America’s 2016 Excellence in Public Service Award.
Health, United States Spotlight
The latest of NCHS data visualization initiatives, Health, United States Spotlight, 1 is an infographic of selected health data found in this comprehensive, congressionally mandated annual report on the nation’s health. Available on the NCHS home page, Spotlight features selected indicators from four subject areas: health status and determinants, use of health resources, health-care resources, and health-care expenditures and payers. Spotlight visualizes and interprets complex information from NCHS data systems and those of partnering government and private agencies.
The Winter 2016 Spotlight—the first of the quarterly issues—features updates on four topics of current public health interest: cigarette smoking among adults, nursing home occupancy rates, emergency department use, and the uninsured in the United States. Multiple infographics for each indicator provide information in an easy-to-read format.
Data Visualization Gallery
The NCHS Data Visualization Gallery provides interactive infographics on important public health topics. 2 Each topic has a dashboard (i.e., a visual display of information that can be monitored at a glance) or charts that can automatically scan across years and states to show trends or geographic differences. To track trends, readers use the year sliders to select specific years or to view changes across years. Drop-down menus enable readers to select demographic characteristics. Where appropriate, state data are compared with national statistics and readers can hover over a state to obtain detailed data for that state.
Currently, the Data Visualization Gallery has entries covering aspects of the following
topics: Drug poisoning mortality, United States, 1999–2014: presents drug poisoning deaths at
the national, state, and county levels. The first two dashboards depict U.S. and state
trends in age-adjusted death rates for drug poisoning from 1999 to 2014 by demographic
characteristics, and the third dashboard presents heat maps of model-based county
estimates for drug poisoning mortality. U.S. and state trends on teen births, 1990–2014: assembles all final birth data for
females aged 15–19, 15–17, and 18–19 years to produce interactive maps and trend lines
for the United States and all 50 states. Births to unmarried women, United States, 1990–2013: illustrates the percentage
distribution of births to unmarried women for 1970–2013, trends in nonmarital births
and birth rates for 1940–2013 (by maternal age) and 1980–2013 (by race/ethnicity), and
pregnancy and live birth rates for 1990–2011 (by marital status and
race/ethnicity). Natality trends, United States, 1909–2013: describes natality trends in the United
States during the past 104 years, highlighting number of births, birth rates, and
general fertility rates by demographic characteristics. Leading causes of death, United States, 1999–2013: presents age-adjusted death rates
for the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States, including mortality
patterns from 1999 through 2013, and by state of residence for selected year and cause
of death. Mortality trends, United States, 1900–2014: presents U.S. mortality trends during the
past 114 years, the differences in age-adjusted death rates and life expectancy at
birth by race and sex, neonatal mortality and infant mortality rates by race,
childhood mortality rates by age, and trends in age-adjusted death rates for five
major causes of death.
Vital Statistics Rapid Release for Quarter 3, 2015
The VSRR program provides access to the timeliest vital statistics for public health surveillance, through (1) releases of quarterly provisional estimates and (2) special reports based on a current flow of vital statistics data from state vital records offices. 3 Using provisional data, NCHS produces much more timely estimates of important health indicators for public health practitioners, researchers, and health policy makers than would be possible using final annual data. The latest quarterly release covers data for July–September 2015 and includes the following highlights:
For 2015, the crude death rate for all causes was 917.7 deaths per 100,000 population in the first quarter, 820.5 deaths per 100,000 population in the second quarter, and 786.1 deaths per 100,000 population in the third quarter. These rates were higher than the rates for the same quarters of 2014 (871.9, 802.2, and 773.9 deaths per 100,000 population in the first, second, and third quarters of 2014). The age-adjusted death rates for the first and second quarters were higher in 2015 (797.9 and 712.4 deaths per 100,000 population, respectively) than in 2014 (769.6 and 706.9 deaths per 100,000 population, respectively), but the rates for the third quarter were similar (680.4 deaths per 100,000 population in 2015 and 679.1 deaths per 100,000 population in 2014).
The crude death rate for all causes for the 12-month period ending with the third quarter of 2015 was 842.5 deaths per 100,000 population, an increase from 816.0 deaths per 100,000 population for the same period in 2014. The age-adjusted rates were higher in 2015 than in 2014 for the comparable period (731.4 and 719.9 deaths per 100,000 population, respectively).
NCHS Associate Director Receives PAA Award
Jennifer Madans, PhD, NCHS associate director for science, was awarded Population Association of America’s 2016 Excellence in Public Service Award at its meeting on March 31, 2016. Madans was honored along with Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson representing the 30th congressional district of Texas. The presentations took place at a reception sponsored by the Committee on Applied Demography and cosponsored by the Government and Public Affairs Committee.
Madans has been the NCHS associate director for science since 1996 and is a distinguished statistician, demographer, and epidemiologist with a world-renowned reputation as a leader in the development and use of quality health information for population research. As an advocate for NCHS’s population-based data systems, she has contributed to the population profession in myriad ways, and has successfully applied demographic and epidemiologic knowledge to policy issues that have measurably improved public health in the United States. Moreover, Madan’s contributions during her 30-year career as a public servant have extended throughout the federal statistical system, where she has led successful efforts to develop statistical policy, improve data quality, develop data standards, and promote comparability.