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Finding Health Statistics

About This Guide

Welcome to the Finding Health Statistics guide.

If you're looking for information on health statistics or chart, this is guide will provide helpful tips finding it. Such information is valuable as it can trigger a research question or provide background information for your project.

If you need to find datasets to download and manipulate using statistical software such as SAS, SPSS and R, for the purpose of secondary analysis, please use the compendium guide, Finding Datasets for Secondary Analysis.

First Steps for Finding Health Statistics

Identify the entity that would collect the data
  • Government Agencies (CDC, CMS, NIH, State Departments, City Governments, etc.)
  • Non-Governmental Organizations (UN, OECD, WHO, World Bank, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, etc.)
  • Commercial Subscription Services 

Be as specific as possible before you start searching
  • What makes the second example better than the first?

Example 1: What is the average age of glaucoma patients?

Example 2: What is the average age of glaucoma patients in the US in the last 10 years?

Identify key concepts and scope, including unit of analysis, frequency, and geographic coverage
  • Unit of analysis
    • Individual Level
    • Institutional Level
  • Frequency
    • Annual
    • Quarterly
    • Monthly
    • Daily
  • Geographic coverage
    • Local
    • National 
    • International
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