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Data Collection and Analysis

 

Many community organizations focus on the needs or deficits of the community. And they should. Every community has needs and deficits; they ought to be corrected.  It is also possible to focus on assets and strengths - emphasizing what the community does have, not what it doesn't.  Why?  Because those assets and strengths can be used to meet those same community needs; they can improve community life.

 

To accomplish this, first find out what those assets are. Review your community data on Kansas Health Matters.  In addition to this secondary data, you will collect primary data from your Community Health Needs Assessment Team and from community residents through a survey or focus group. You may also collect primary data from interviews with key informants and informal community leaders if they are not a part of your Community Health Needs Assessment Team. In addition, it is recommended you create a local health services and community asset directory. A Guide and Template, as well as previous directories, are available to assist you

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Frequently Asked Questions

Collecting Data

1. Do I need to conduct a survey or focus group to validate the secondary data on this site?

Surveys and focus groups are an excellent way to identify primary data about the health issues and social determinants that are important in your area.  Surveys and focus groups are not needed to validate secondary data.  Primary and secondary data are reviewed by your community health assessment committee in determining priority areas for your assessment and community health improvement plan.  
 
For more information about data and assessment visit the Kansas Health Matters Assessing Community Needs and Resources page or review the sections in Chapter 3 of the KU Community Toolbox.

2. One of the geographic areas for dashboards is census tract.  What data are available?  How can I use this information?

Kansas Health Matters includes census tract data for 19 social determinants of health (see list below). These data are made available from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) and have been aggregated to the census tract. ACS data at the census tract level represent a summary of survey responses over a 5-year period. These indicators are also available at a county level.
Census tract information can be helpful to large urban counties in identifying pockets of need during health assessment efforts.

Over 700 census tracts exist in Kansas. There is a standard approach for naming census tracts. A Census tract is uniquely identified by using its complete 11 digit census tract number.

For example, Census Tract 20-001-952600 (on Kansas Health Matters we eliminate the dashes) is located in Allen county, Kansas.
20 is the FIPS code for Kansas
001 is the FIPS code for Allen County
952600 identifies the specific census tract.

In order to find the census tracts in your county visit: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/maps/pl10_map_suite/st20_tract.html.
 
If you need to find the FIPS code for your county visit, http://www.itl.nist.gov/fipspubs/co-codes/ks.txt.

There are some limitations. None of the Kansas Partnership for Community Health (KanPICH) data at this time are aggregated to census tract. Kansas Health Matters can't combine several census tracts and produce results. Dashboards would need to be created for each census tract of interest.
 
For more information on ACS visit: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/
 
Categories and Social Determinant Indicators (in Italics) available:

Government Assistance Programs
Households with Public Assistance

Homeownership
Foreclosure Rate
Homeownership

Housing Affordability & Supply
Renters Spending 30% or More of Household Income on Rent

Income
Median Household Income
Per Capita Income

Poverty
Children Living Below Poverty Level
Families Living Below Poverty Level
People 65+ Living Below Poverty Level
People Living 200% Above Poverty Level
People Living Below Poverty Level
Young Children Living Below Poverty Level

Education
Educational Attainment in Adult Population
People 25+ with a High School Degree or Higher
Higher Education
People 25+ with a Bachelor's Degree or Higher

Social Environment
Neighborhood/Community Attachment
People 65+ Living Alone

Transportation
Commute To Work
Mean Travel Time to Work
Workers who Drive Alone to Work
Workers who Walk to Work

Personal Vehicle Travel
Households without a Vehicle

3. Why are certain statistics for some indicators missing?

There are situations in Kansas Health Matters (KHM) where data by county (or region), by population group (race/ethnicity), or even time period may be missing when it is displayed for other dashboards. This is due to suppression of the rates, which causes the dashboard to be suppressed. For vital statistics data there must be at least 6 events for a rate to be included in Kansas Health Matters. The Kansas Health Matters Partners agreed that rates and counts should be suppressed to protect the confidentiality of the individual. In addition rates based on such small numbers would not be reliable for use in plotting trends. For BRFSS data there needs to be at least 50 complete interviews for the county or region in question and at least 5 responses in each response category of the variable for calculation of prevalence estimates, otherwise or the estimate will be suppressed.

Where source data exists, rates by population group, county and health preparedness region, and time period (single or multi-years back to 2000) are prepared. Calculation of the variables at the health preparedness region is designed to help overcome most suppression. Rates suppressed by county should be available at the region. That may not always be true as region rates are indeed occasionally suppressed for low frequency vital events.

In our quest to be helpful and protect the individuals, we are forced to deal with this issue in statistics. Kansas Health Matters Partners were unable to devise an approach using the KHM site to indicate the information is suppressed. Suppressed rates are excluded from KHM data uploads. Data source and contact information are part of every dashboard. This may enable you explore the dataset in question at it's source or learn more about the suppression of the results.

4. What is the WIC group referenced in the WIC health indicator, participation or enrollment.? How can we learn more?

The WIC data cited for the Kansas Health Matters is participation data. Average monthly counts are then divided by population counts to arrive at average participation rate per 1000 population

5. Is there a way to get numerator and denominator values so CI's can be calculated or probability tests can be completed?

Data from Kansas Department of Health & Environrment contain confidence intervals.
 
The Healthy Communities Institute which maintains the site has not yet created programming to display those values.
 
We look forward to incorporating the feature in the future.

6. How can I access and download historical data for Kansas counties for all the varibales in CSV or excel format?

While Kansas Health Matters is not designed to be a data download tool, an export of the indicator data available in the system can be accessed.
 
The file name will be IndicatorDataDownload and be appended to the date it was created. The file is Zipped.

7. How should I cite staistics and indicators accessed from Kansas Health Matters

Using the the International Committee of Medical Journals (IMCJE) Uniform Requirements the citation for the site is: Kansas Health Matters[Internet]. Topeka (KS):
 
Kansas Partnership for Improving Community Health [cited 21 Oct 2013]. Available from http://www.kansashealthmatters.org/.

8. We have noticed inconsistencies with the Kansas Health Matters website and the County Health Rankings website. What are the differences between the two sites?

Statistics in the two system are obtained and prepared differently.  
 
Source information for County Health Rankings in many instances are federally prepare statistics.  Methodological differences, especially as it relates to BRFSS statistics, accounts for the different values.Other factors may be the number of years addressed by the statistics.  
 
Please contact County Health Rankings for any explanation of their methology

Kansas Health Indicators

Kansas Health Matters