Background
The State Epidemiological
Outcomes Workgroup Online Data System was developed by Bach Harrison, LLC and is
brought to you by the Utah Department of Human Services, Division of Substance Abuse
and Mental Health (DSAMH), and was funded through the Strategic Prevention Framework
State Incentive Grant (SPF-SIG). The component of the SPF-SIG project responsible
for data collection and analysis is the State Epidemiological Outcomes Workgroup
(SEOW). The SEOW was formed in 2006, and tasked with identifying and evaluating
the substance abuse prevention related data that exists in the state, and developing
a database that would assist professionals in the substance abuse prevention and
other related fields. This website was developed with the guidance of the SEOW and
the data presented through this website were collected as part of the SEOW dataset.
The indicators
collected by the SEOW represent the most comprehensive compilation of data related
to the consumption and consequence of substance use and abuse in Utah. These data
were first presented and summarized in a formal report (“Utah Statewide Substance
Abuse Epidemiology Profile Report”) in 2007. The DSAMH plans to update the state
epidemiology profile report biennially. The latest report was developed in the Fall
of 2009, and finalized in the Spring of 2010. To download or view of copy of the
latest state epidemiology profile report, please visit the DSAMH website:
www.dsamh.utah.gov.
The online
database tool is intended to complement the written state epidemiology profile report.
While the state profile report provides an excellent overview of the data housed
within the SEOW dataset and provides useful presentations of state level data
(including comparisons between state and national data), space limitations constrained
the report’s ability to provide sub-state level data. Because one of the primary
goals for the SEOW has been to provide data that informs prevention planning at
the community level, an extensive effort has been made to obtain as much data as
possible that can be disaggregated at sub-state levels (primarily county and regional
levels). To this aim, the website enhances the ability of substance abuse prevention
professionals to access the SEOW data at the community level by providing simple
analysis tools, and allowing users to download raw data that can be analyzed further
as needed. For community level prevention professionals, the website offers several
advantages over the written epidemiological profile reports because it allows users
to generate customizable queries of indicators by county, and mapping options of
several years of data (rather than a single year as provided in the profile reports).
Additionally, users can examine trends within certain demographic variables such
as gender, grade and age when these data are available.
About the Data
The data housed within
the SEOW dataset were collected from a variety of sources both nationally
and within the state of Utah. The data are presented (and available for download)
through the website as they were provided to the SEOW by the source agency. Many
indicators in the SEOW dataset were provided by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention’s
State Epidemiological Data System (SEDS). The SEDS compiles a variety of substance
abuse relevant data that are available through national datasets. Other indicators
were provided by agencies within the state of Utah. In particular, the Department
of Human Services, Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health (DSAMH), and the
Utah Department of Health (via the Indicator Based Information System for Public
Health) provided a wealth of data to the SEOW. For a complete list and descriptions
of data sources contributing to the SEOW dataset, please see the data sources tab
of this website.
While the 2007
and 2010 state epidemiology profile reports provide excellent overviews of the SEOW
data at the state level, including comparisons between state and national trends,
the online data system is focused on providing community (sub-state) level data
that will allow prevention professionals at the community level to examine data
relevant to the communities they serve. By default, charts and map presentations
of the data from the online system focus on county, region, and state data (rather
than national data), and allow comparisons between these three levels of geography.
With that being said, some data sources the SEOW felt were important for inclusion
in the data system are only available at state and national levels. For these indicators,
the system presents state and national data rather than county and regional data.
Every effort
was made to include the most recent data possible for each indicator. However, typically
most data sets do not have data for the current or previous year. There are a variety
of reasons for the lag in data availability. However, the primary reason for this
lag is that most data sources have one to three year delays in making their data
available to the public.
Additionally, for
many indicators the source agencies would not allow small numbers of events or cases
associated with a particular level of geography (e.g., less than five cases per
county) to be released for public use. These restrictions regarding data release
are intended to protect the anonymity of those who are counted as part of the statistics
for those indicators. As a result, queries of some indicators may result in some
counties or regions having missing values that actually reflects that a low number
of events occurred in that geography (e.g., less than five cases) for the specified
time period. Typically, this occurs for indicators which are low frequency events
(e.g., suicide, homicide, etc.), and/or in areas where populations are small (i.e.,
resulting in lower numbers of events). In order to minimize the number of data points
that were unable to be released due to small numbers, the SEOW queried different
indicators with different time periods as necessary. For lower frequency event indicators,
years were aggregated to maximize the likelihood that publishable numbers would
be available for as many counties and regions as possible. The lower frequency the
indicator, the greater numbers of years of aggregation are necessary. Therefore,
presentations of indicators through the online database system will vary in the
timeframes that they are published. For example, higher frequency events such as
property and violent crimes allow publication of single year data at county level,
whereas relatively lower frequency indicators such as cardiovascular disease deaths
allow publication of 3-year aggregated data, and very low frequency indicators such
as suicides only allow publication of 10-year aggregated data at county level. In
order to balance the desire to have trend data for as many time periods as possible,
with the publication limitations of low frequency indicators, the timeframes covered
may differ within the same indicator for county level data and region level data
(region level data is more likely to allow publication for smaller timeframes).
About Rate
Calculations
Most of the rates
presented through the SEOW online data system were calculated using population projections
(estimates) developed by the United States Census Bureau (for more detailed information
please see the data sources tab on this site). The Census Bureau population projections
used for rate calculations are available for viewing or downloading through the
online data system. These data are included in the list of indicators under the
label “Census Projections.” For indicators downloaded from the Utah Health Department’s
Indicator Based Information System for Public Health (IBIS), rates were pre-calculated
by the IBIS website rather than re-calculated. This was done to ensure that queries
made on the IBIS website were consistent with data presented through this website.
Please note that the Census Bureau population estimates are updated each year, and
as a result, the projections found in this website may differ slightly from the
projections found on the Census Bureau website.