What are Health Related Statistics?

Health related statistics include statistics on illnesses, injuries, health facilities and health personnel, as well demographic, crime, and life-style statistics.

Statistics are available for an enormous number of topics and from a variety of sources. The federal government, international governments, state, territorial and local governments assemble statistics for the areas they govern. As an example, North Carolina keeps statistics for how many people died from cancer and how old they were at the time of their deaths. Organizations connected with diseases and disorders collect statistics related to their health topics. For instance the March of Dimes can tell you the percentage of babies born prematurely in the United States.

Definitions of Health Statistics Terms

• Biometry measurement of life; calculation of the probable duration of human life; a branch of biology that studies biological phenomena and observations by means of statistical analysis
• Comorbidity when two or more illnesses exist at the same time in one person
• Compiled Data data that has been processed and analyzed; data that has been summarized, put into tables or compared against other data
• Data sets are available in a variety of formats. Some are downloadable for manipulation offline. Others allow users to query a data set or collection of data sets with web-based tools. Information can be extracted and used in custom-made tables.
• Demographics data on the size, structure and dynamics of human populations, including socioeconomic factors such as employment, housing, education and income
• Health statistics for diseases or health conditions, data on morbidity, mortality, incidence (number of new cases for a specified population at a given point in time) and prevalence (total number of cases in a specified population at a given point in time)
• Morbidity the ratio of deaths in an area to the population of that area; expressed per 1000 per year; the relative incidence of a particular disease
• Mortality The sum or number of deaths in a given time or a given community; also, the proportion of deaths to population, or to a specific number of the population; death rate;
• Randomized Controlled Trial A study in which participants are randomly (i.e., by chance) assigned to one of two or more treatment arms of a clinical trial. Occasionally placebos are utilized
• Raw Data unanalyzed data not formatted or processed; data not yet subjected to analysis; Researcher's records of patients, such as patient charts, hospital records, x-rays, and attending physician's notes
• Risk Assessment An evaluation of a risk item which determines (1) what can go wrong, (2) how likely is it to occur, and (3) what are the consequences; A systematic process that determines the likelihood of adverse health effects to a population after exposure to a hazard
• Social Indicators tell us something about an aspect of well-being within an area or group. Tracking the indicator over time should give an idea whether or not things are improving, static or declining with respect to the aspect of well-being that it measures.
• Vital statistics systematically recorded information on births, deaths, and marital status

More Terms

What Are Some Of The Ways Health Related Statistics Are Used?

• To provide quality of life indicators for society
• To provide comparisons for clinical studies
• To assess costs and planning for care
• To identify prevention targets

Types of Questions Answered by Health Statistics

• Factual lookup
  • How many emergency department visits were made in 2001?
• Research
  • Have experimental interventions reduced HIV risk behaviors?
• Social indicators
  • What effect does family income have on children's vocabulary development?

Your particular topic and time frame will influence which sources you use.