MAPS: What Your State Is Good At, And What It's Lame At

From Upworthy:

Just when you thought you knew everything about a red state or a blue state, these cool maps show that each state is No. 1 in some kind of environmental or public health initiative.

A whole lot of health-related data

From the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality

2010 Hospital Inpatient Stays File
2010 Prescribed Medicines File
Health Care Expenditures for the Five Most Common Conditions of Adults Ages 40 to 64, 2009
Preventive Health Care Utilization by Adult Residents of MSAs & Non-MSAs: Differences by Race/Ethnicity, 2009
Use & Expenses for Office-Based Physician Visits by Specialty, 2009: Estimates for the U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population


From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

2011 Imputed Family Income/Personal Earnings Files


From the National Center for Health Statistics

Wait Time for Treatment in Hospital Emergency Departments: 2009

Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys and lots of other health stats

From the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality

2010 Emergency Room Visits
Office-Based Medical Provider Visits
2010 Outpatient Visits
Asthma Medication Use among Adults with Reported Treatment for Asthma, United States, 1998-1999 and 2008-2009
Trends in Use and Expenditures for Depression among U.S. Adults Age 18 and Older, Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population, 1999 and 2009
The Uninsured in America, 1996-2011: Estimates for the U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population under Age 65


From the National Center for Health Statistics

Multiple Chronic Conditions Among Adults Aged 45 and Over: Trends Over the Past 10 Years



From the National Institute on Drug Abuse
Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2011 (Volume II): College Students & Adults Ages 19-50

First Marriages in the United States: Data From the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth

From the National Center for Health Statistics [PDF]- 

 This report shows trends and group differences in current marital status, with a focus on first marriages among women and men aged 15–44 years in the United States. Trends and group differences in the timing and duration of first marriages are also discussed. These data are based on the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG).

Choose My Plate.Gov

Visit ChooseMyPlate.gov for guidance on which foods to add to your diet and which foods you may want to consider reducing. You'll find resources to help you plan a healthy menu, lose weight, analyze your diet, and more.

Balancing Calories
● Enjoy your food, but eat less.
● Avoid oversized portions.

Foods to Increase
● Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
● Make at least half your grains whole grains.
● Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.

Foods to Reduce
● Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals ― and choose the foods with lower numbers.
● Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

But I miss the pyramid!

How Secondhand Smoke Affects the Brain

From the article:

Secondhand smoke has a direct, measurable impact on the brain similar to what's seen in the person doing the smoking, according to a new study. The finding highlights the importance of limiting exposure to secondhand smoke in cars and other enclosed spaces.

When not exposed to smoke (top image), brains show high levels (red and yellow) of a tracer molecule that binds to empty nicotine receptors. After 1 hour of exposure to secondhand smoke (bottom), nicotine displaces and reduces the level of tracer molecules.Image courtesy of Brody et al., Archives of General Psychiatry.

Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death nationwide. People who smoke are up to 6 times more likely than non-smokers to suffer a heart attack. Tobacco is also one of the strongest cancer-causing agents. Up to 90% of lung cancer deaths are attributed to smoking.

But the smoker isn't the only one harmed by cigarette smoke. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 50,000 deaths per year can be attributed to secondhand smoke. A Surgeon General's Report in 2006 concluded that secondhand smoke causes heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmoking adults. It also causes serious health conditions in children, including sudden infant death syndrome, respiratory infections and more severe asthma.

Fertility; Women's Health

Data on fertility of American women for the noninstitutionalized population are collected biannually in the June Current Population Survey (CPS) for the Nation. Detailed information from recent surveys and historical trends in selected tables are listed below. Data on children ever born and mothers’ age at last birth are collected for women 15 to 44 years old arom 1971 to present and are available at the national level. These data are the best source for historical trends in fertility. (Note: Reports from 1997 to present are currently on-line).


Women’s Health Care Chartbook – Key Findings from the Kaiser Women’s Health Survey.

World Health Statistics 2011

World Health Statistics 2011 contains WHO’s annual compilation of health-related data for its 193 Member States, and includes a summary of the progress made towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated targets. (Available in 3 languages.)

From the press release:

An increasing number of countries are facing a double burden of disease as the prevalence of risk factors for chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases and cancers increase and many countries still struggle to reduce maternal and child deaths caused by infectious diseases, for the Millennium Development Goals, according to the World Health Statistics 2011 released by the WHO today.
Noncommunicable diseases such heart diseases, stroke, diabetes and cancer, now make up two-thirds of all deaths globally, due to the population aging and the spread of risk factors associated with globalization and urbanization. The control of risk factors such as tobacco use, sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet and excessive use of alcohol becomes more critical. The latest WHO figures showed that about 4 out of 10 men and 1 in 11 women are using tobacco and about 1 in 8 adults is obese.

In addition many developing countries continue to battle health issues such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria that are most likely to kill children under the age of five. In 2009, 40% of all child deaths were among newborns (aged 28 days or less). Much more needs to be done to achieve the MDGs by the target date of 2015, but progress has accelerated.

•Child mortality declined at 2.7% per year since 2000, twice as fast as during the 1990s (1.3%). Mortality among children under five years fell from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009.
•Maternal mortality declined at 3.3% per year since 2000, almost twice as fast in the decade after 2000 than during the 1990s (2%). The number of women dying as a result of complications during pregnancy and childbirth has decreased from 546,000 in 1990 to 358,000 in 2008.

Healthmap

Healthmap, as someone noted, is "a site that aggregates freely available information and turns it into maps showing what is happening in human and animal public health, and where it's happening. The info comes from sources ranging from Google News, to the World Health Organization, to ProMED Mail—a site that reviews and curates reports of disease outbreaks."

The page has this caveat: "This site necessarily relies on publicly available third-party information. We assume no responsibility for its accuracy or completeness."

Title II of Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act Takes Effect

On November 21, 2009 Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) took effect. GINA prohibits discrimination by health insurers and employers based on individuals' genetic information. Genetic information includes the results of genetic tests to determine whether someone is at increased risk of acquiring a condition (such as some forms of breast cancer) in the future, as well as a person's family medical history. For more information about Title I provisions of the law relating to health coverage read The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008: Information for Researchers and Health Care Professionals.

State-Specific Smoking-Attributable Mortality and Years of Potential Life Lost

For the United States, 2000--2004

Website lets public track illness

New Yorkers can now find out the hospital admission rates for preventable illnesses by ZIP Code through a new Web site initiated by the state Department of Health.

PRB DataFinder

The Population Reference Bureau exists to collect and publish statistics about population, health, and the environment worldwide. For an introduction to a specific place - anywhere in the world - there's no better place to start.

The PRB DataFinder tool aggregates statistics on U.S. states and nations around the world. The interface is simple, belying the broad coverage and notable depth of available information. Focus differs, on a state vs. nation basis, but in addition to population demographics, you'll find statistics as diverse as CO2 emissions per capita, number of uninsured citizens, remaining natural habitat, percentage of women in leadership, vaccination rates, and more.

U.S. TOPICS
* Population Characteristics
* Education
* Health
* Labor Force and Commuting
* Economic Security
* Housing
* Family Structure

WORLD TOPICS
* Population Trends
* Education
* Economic
* Environment
* Health
* HIV/AIDS
* Reproductive Health

Updated State Health Stats

Statehealthfacts.org has recently added new and updated data on Demographics and the Economy, Medicaid & SCHIP, Medicare, Providers & Service Use, Health Status and Women’s Health.

Marital Status and Health Differentials from 1972 to 2003

The Times They Are a Changin’. "Although the meanings and rates of being married, divorced, separated, never-married, and widowed have changed significantly over the past several decades, we know very little about historical trends in the relationship between marital status and health."

Shifts to and from Daylight Saving Time and Incidence of Myocardial Infarction.

More than 1.5 billion men and women are exposed to the transitions involved in daylight saving time: turning clocks forward by an hour in the spring and backward by an hour in the autumn. These transitions can disrupt chronobiologic rhythms and influence the duration and quality of sleep, and the effect lasts for several days after the shifts.

Not incidentally, Daylight Saving Time returns on March 8, 2009 to most of the United States.