The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched a sleek data repository called the Health Indicators Warehouse as part of the administration’s Open Government Plan. The Health Indicators Warehouse is a curated collection of 1200 health indicators which, though many being available before, were not in one place.
In addition to being available for quick visual analytics from the website itself, the data warehouse has an API that allows application developers to directly pull data and manipulate it for their purposes. They’re fully encouraging exploration and tinkering with the hope of improving health through finding insights in the repository of community, state, and national level health statistics.
The effort represents a collaboration between disparate agencies that previously housed the data, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and more.
From the press release:
The Health Indicators Warehouse is a collection of health indicators from a wide array of HHS data sources that are maintained to support researchers, technology developers and policymakers. Health indicators are measurable characteristics that describe the health of a population (e.g., life expectancy, mortality, disease incidence or prevalence, or other health states); determinants of health (e.g., health behaviors, health risk factors, physical environments, and socioeconomic environments); and health care access, cost, quality, and use. Depending on the measure, a health indicator may be defined for a specific population, place, political jurisdiction, or geographic area. Currently, the Health Indicators Warehouse includes nearly 1200 health indicators derived from over 170 different data sources, with all being downloadable via APIs.
The health indicator data sets and the web tools provided by the warehouse are expected to support technology development leading to a wide array of applications (apps) and data services.
Press release: HHS Launches Health Indicators Warehouse…
Link: Health Indicators Warehouse
