Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The federal data systems only have data at the county, state, and national level. If you would like data for a different geographic area such as a specific city or town, you should check with the State Health Department and/or Cancer Registry of the State (See CDC's lists of State Health Departments).

Smoking data is in the Screening and Risk Factors Report. The data available come from different sources.

We publish the most recent statistics that we have available.

Sometimes more recent local data can be found through state/county health departments. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site provides lists of State Health Departments.

More information on reporting delay from the SEER Cancer Statistics Review Technical Notes in the section "Reporting Delay."

1. A free SEER*Stat account gives users access to US Mortality (1969 to present) data.
2. Exporting data to a CSV allows you to run some of your own analyses.

HDPulse provides statistics primarily for prioritizing heath disparities. The focus is on leading causes of death.

Other causes of death may be available from the National Vital Statistics System,in a national report, or may be calculated using public use data and tools such as SEER*Stat that empowers a user to define very specific data requests. If you are looking for more specific cancer statistics, please visit the State Cancer Profiles web site.

County changes and data availability issues are as follows:

• Due to data availability issues, the time period used in the calculation of the joinpoint regression model may differ for selected racial groups or counties. For a complete list of these, see Joinpoint Trends - Differences.
• In Alaska, the following two geographic areas are grouped together in the data: Denali Borough (02068) and Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (02290).
• In Colorado, Broomfield was incorporated into a county (officially November 15, 2001) from portions of Adams, Boulder, Jefferson and Weld. Data prior to 2002 is used in the calculation of statistics for these counties using the old county boundaries. Since five years of data are not available for Broomfield county, there are not any mortality statistics published on this web site for Broomfield County (08014).

For a more detailed list of county changes over time, please go to the methods page of the population data from the SEER Web site.

Mortality Data - We use ICD-10. Definitions of the codes can be found here.

A confidence interval is a range of values that has a specified probability of containing the rate or trend. The 95% (p-value = .05) and 99% (p-value = .01) confidence intervals are the most common.

Hispanic/Latino data include all people who identify themselves as being of Hispanic/Latino origin. Hispanic/Latino ethnicity is considered independently of race, so Hispanic/Latino persons may be of any race.

Suggested Citation:
HDPulse: An Ecosystem of Minority Health and Health Disparities Resources. National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Created . Available from https://hdpulse.nimhd.nih.gov

Data is easily exported to a comma-separated value (CSV) file using the "Export Data" link located to the right of most tables, graphs, and maps on the Web site. CSV files can be opened in a spreadsheet program, which will automatically separate the data into columns and rows. For sections of the Web site that do not have an "Export Data" link, use the "Data Table" link instead. Select the data you want to copy from the data table, then copy and paste the data into your spreadsheet program.

Graphs and Maps:
To use a graph or map in your presentation, click on the "Save Graph" button next to the graph. This will enable you to download an image file of the graph or map. The image file is in PNG format, which is compatible with most modern presentation, word processing, or image software. Some graphs or images may not have an option to copy in this way. When this is the case, use alt-PrtScr to copy an image of the current window to the clipboard and then paste into your presentation. Next select the image in your presentation document and right click for format picture to access options to crop unwanted areas, add borders, and resize.

The other option is to use the "Data Table" link to export the data as a CSV file or to copy and paste the data into a spreadsheet program. Once the data is in a spreadsheet, you can use your presentation or graphing software to create a graph or table.

Tables
Use one of the methods described in this question to export or copy table data for use in a spreadsheet program. Once you have the data, it can be formatted to meet your needs. Most presentation software will allow you to import data from a spreadsheet.