Analytic Tools

Below are brief descriptions of tools to analyze health disparities, with URLs, grouped into the following categories:

1. Vulnerable or Disadvantaged Populations
2. Geographic Region
3. Healthcare Systems
4. Risk Factors and Surveillance
5. Diseases and Conditions
6. Disease Burden
7. Economic Factors
8. Context/Cross Cutting

Vulnerable or Disadvantaged Populations

• CensusScope: Population by Race
  This website provides census population comparisons over time.
• CMS: New toolkit provides examples for implementing the National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards
  New CMS toolkit enables organizations to implement the National CLAS Standards and improve health equity. The toolkit also provides practical tools and examples of CLAS, in addition to efforts to implement the National CLAS Standards that can be adapted for use by health care organizations.

Geographic Region

• State Health Compare
  State Health Compare is a user-friendly online tool for obtaining and comparing state-level estimates related to health and health care using a broad "culture of health" lens.
• Census Data Tool
  One of the primary purposes of the U.S. Census is to measure population distribution and change. The Census Data Tool includes General Information about the US Population and Segregation Measures.
• Diversity and Disparities: Residential Segregation
  The website contains non-Hispanic/Latino white, non-Hispanic/Latino black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian and Native American population data. You can use the data to learn about the racial/ethnic composition of a city or metropolitan region
• The Persistence of Segregation in the Metropolis
  This report contains information on the 2010 Census which offers new information on changes in residential segregation in metropolitan regions across the country as they continue to become more diverse.
• MapUSA
  Map USA provides maps and census data at the tract and county level from 1940 to 2010.
• 500 Cities Project
  CDC's 500 Cities Project is an interactive web application that helps users view and explore local-level health data within America's 500 largest cities on 27 chronic disease measures focusing on conditions, behaviors and risk factors that have substantial effect on the public's health.
• County Health Rankings
  County Health Rankings, published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, provide a snapshot of how health is influenced by where we live, learn, work and play

Healthcare Systems

• Health System Tracker
  Health System Tracker is a collaboration between the Kaiser Family Foundation and the US Bureau of economic Analysis that provides data on health spending, quality of care, access and affordability, health and wellbeing.

Risk Factors and Surveillance

• NCI Cancer Atlast
  NCI Cancer Atlas is a tool that allows users to create maps of cancer statistics, demographics, and risk factors.
• National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Measures Registry
  National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Measures Registry is a searchable database of diet and physical activity measures to assess childhood diet, physical activity, and the environments in which these behaviors occur, designed to standardize use of common measures and research methods at the individual, community, and population levels.

Diseases and Conditions

• SEER*Stat
  NCI SEER*Stat is statistical software for viewing individual cancer records and for producing statistics to study the impact of cancer on a population.

Disease Burden

• State Cancer Profiles
  State Cancer Profiles (co-sponsored by NCI and CDC) characterizes the cancer burden in a standardized manner to motivate action, integrate surveillance into cancer control planning, characterize areas and demographic groups, and expose health disparities.

Economic Factors

• The Big Picture
  The Big Picture provides calculations using data drawn from government surveys and publicly available aggregate tax returns.
• Annual report on the US
  This report is intended to provide the American people with a comprehensive view of the combined US federal, state, and local governments' (our Government) revenues, expenditures, and key metrics and the factors that may affect future operations.
• The Housing and Transportation Affordability Index
  The Housing and Transportation Affordability Index, hosted by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, provides a comprehensive view of the cost of housing the cost of transportation at the neighborhood level.
• Housing and Transportation Affordability
  Housing and Transportation Affordability indicator used in the CDC-DOT Transporation and Health Tool.
• HUD Location Affordability Index
  The Location Affordability Index (LAI) works to close this gap by providing estimates of household housing and transportation costs at the neighborhood level along with constituent data on the built environment and demographics.
• Oxfam America
  Oxfam America has a new index that ranks states based on their labor policies.
  The Best States to Work Index looks at 11 policy areas in three dimensions: wage policies to ensure workers earn as close to a living wage as possible; worker protections so workers can take time off for sickness or pregnancy and have legal protections against sexual harassment; and right to organize policies. We also created an interactive map with state-specific scorecards.
  
  Included in the analysis are correlations with health outcomes, including infant mortality and life expectancy.

Context/Cross Cutting

• Health Disparities Data Widget Tool
  The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) and the Office of Minority Health (OMH) Health Disparities Data Widget Tool provides charts and graphs of disparities data (including disability, education, income, location, race and ethnicity, and sex) and Leading Health Indicators.
• Health Disparities Calculator (HD*Calc)
  NCI Health Disparities Calculator (HD*Calc) is an online tool that calculates and graphs eleven summary disparity measures previously published in peer-reviewed journals.
• Census Bureau Statistical Testing Tool
  Census Bureau Statistical Testing Tool helps researchers accurately compute confidence intervals for Census data.
• SHPDR (State Health Practice Database for Research)
  The State Health Practice Database for Research (SHPDR) captures cross-sectional and longitudinal variation in states' statutes and laws to enable researchers to more effectively perform clinically oriented health economics research, and investigate the diffusion of medical technology and other health services research outcomes of interest.
• REFLEX-ISS
  REFLEX-ISS is a discussion tool to incorporate social inequalities in health interventions.
• PhenX
  The PhenX (consensus measures for Phenotypes and eXposures) Toolkit is a catalog of recommended, standard measures of phenotypes and environmental exposures for use in biomedical research.
• EJSCREEN
  EJSCREEN is an environmental justice mapping and screening tool that provides a nationally consistent dataset and approach for combining environmental and demographic indicators. EJSCREEN users choose a geographic area; the tool then provides demographic and environmental information for that area. EJSCREEN displays this information and includes a method for combining environmental and demographic indicators into EJ indexes.
• Does where you live affect how long you live?
  Explore how life expectancy in the US compares with life expectancy in your area right down to the census tract level.