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Surveillance Data Discovery Exercise Open the attached Surveillance Data Discovery Exercise, and while using the link below complete 14 questions under the listed topics 1-5

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Surveillance Data Discovery Exercise

Open the attached Surveillance Data Discovery Exercise, and while using the link below complete 14 questions under the listed topics 1-5.

https://www.health.state.mn.us/data/mndataportal/about/index.html

Post the answers to the questions in a word document in the dropbox.  Also, find one other place online for this type of public health surveillance data. This could be similar data for another state, city, or national health surveillance. Include the link to another site you located

Surveillance Data Discovery Exercise

Updated August 2020

           

Background

 

Public health surveillance includes regular and ongoing systematic data collection, analysis, interpretation, and timely dissemination. Surveillance data measure the occurrence and distributions of hazards, population characteristics, behaviors, and health, and can be used to assess intervention needs as well as evaluate their effects.

 

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Environmental Public Health Tracking program (MN Tracking) conducts environmental health surveillance across the state, with a key objective of tracking temporal and spatial trends in the environment and health outcomes to identify populations at-risk and inform public health action. MN Tracking was initiated in 2007 when state legislation mandated environmental health and surveillance and biomonitoring studies. Since then, MDH has joined with 24 state and local health departments in the CDC Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, working to fill data gaps in long-term environmental health surveillance data.

 

The MN Public Health Data Access Portal (MN Data portal) is maintained by MDH MN Tracking to make surveillance data publicly-available, integrating data to better equip Minnesota’s communities, policymakers, researchers, and public health professionals to explore relationships between environmental exposures and health effects. The MN Data Portal currently provides information over 23 environmental and population health topics, along with a number of tools to aid users in viewing, understanding, and disseminating information, including hover-over information, interactive maps, data queries and custom downloads, and County profiles.

 

Hover-over information allows users to gather more information, read word definitions, and see data values on a specific topic by hovering their mouse pointer over a word or image.  A number of topics have data that is displayed on an interactive map, which allows users to specify the data and information on the map, sort data in tables, and compare maps side by side for a topic.  Data queries allows users to generate custom data tables based on their specifications for certain topics.  County Profiles enables users to view a profile of health and environment data for any Minnesota county.

Exercise: Use the MN Public Health Data Portal to explore these 5 topics.

Topic 1: Poverty and Income.

You would like to know more about the topic of poverty and income in Minnesota:

 

1. What percentage of children age 18 and under were living in poverty in 2017? Is this number increasing, decreasing, or remaining stable over time?

 

2. Explore data on “People in poverty” by county.  Which county had the highest percentage of people of all ages at 100% poverty from 2013-2017?

 

3. What was the median household income in Minnesota in 2017? Was it higher, lower or the same as the US?

 

Topic 2: Cancer

You are interested in the rate of new cases of cancer throughout the state of Minnesota:

 

4. Where do the cancer incidence data on the portal come from? What are the strengths/ limitations of this data source?

 

5. Is the rate of melanoma increasing, decreasing, or remaining stable over time for females and males?

 

6. For 2013 - 2017, which county has the highest age-adjusted incidence rate of female breast cancer among women aged 50 and older?

 

1. 1. How many new cases of breast cancer occurred in females 50 years of age and older in this county from 2013 - 2017?

 

7. Why have some of the county rates of breast cancer been suppressed?

 

Topic 3: Childhood Blood Lead

 

You would like to know more about the rates of childhood lead levels and testing in Minnesota:

 

8. What is one of the major risk factors for childhood lead poisoning?

 

9. What percent of children born in 2015 were tested for blood lead in Minnesota by the age of 3?
10. What is the current threshold for defining an elevated lead level in children?

 

Topic 4: Mercury (see Biomonitoring Data)

 

You are asked to gather information about mercury levels in the population:

 

11. According to national data (NHANES), what has been the trend of total blood mercury levels in US women of child-bearing age from 1999 to 2016?

 

12. What level of mercury is considered “safe” in blood for pregnant women and newborns?

 

13. Which racial/ethnic group has the highest level (on average) of total mercury in US?

 

 

Topic 5: Surveillance data uses

 

Surveillance data can be used to identify important public health questions that need investigation, or help to target an intervention.

 

1. 1. Explore the data portal on you own and provide an example of a research question that is raised by the data. This could be a trend or disparity that hasn’t been explained.

 

OR

 

1. 2. Find an example where the data suggests that an intervention or other action is needed or could be targeted to reduce a disparity.

 

 

Public health surveillance references (not necessary for the exercise):

• CDC’s Vision for Public Health Surveillance in the 21^st Century. MMWR Supp. Vol 61. (2012) Available: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/other/su6103.pdf

• Public Health Surveillance: A Tool for Targeting and Monitoring Interventions, in: Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2^nd Ed. (2006). Available: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11770/
  • Good reference for surveillance principles, tools, methods, and applications.