���Finding Health Statistics & Data��Presented by Michael Sholinbeck, ��Public Health Librarian/Interim Optometry Liaison, ��Bioscience, Natural Resources & Public Health Library.��UC Berkeley D-Lab, �November 2, 2022.��me: msholinb@library.berkeley.edu��

La Trahison des Images (1929), by R. Magritte (LACMA)

Asthma Diagnosis in Bay Area Kids, 2015-16�from Kidsdata.org�

From NHANES data: �http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db213.htm �Caloric Intake From Fast Food Among Children and Adolescents in the United States, 2011–2012�

Money spent on beef in 2020�Source: SimplyAnalytics

Caution: Survey Ahead!

Lots of health data comes from surveys. Here are some issues to consider when looking at survey or estimated data:

• Look at sample sizes and survey response rates - representative of your population? Enough responses to be valid?
• Who was surveyed? - representative of population being compared to? Include group you are interested in?
• Were the survey respondents from heterogeneous groups? Do the survey questions have a similar meaning to members of different groups?
• How was survey conducted? Via telephone? - Many people only have cell phones. Random selection or targeted group?
• What assumptions and methods were used for extrapolating the data?
• Look at definitions of characteristics - Does this match your own definitions?
• Who identified race/ethnicity of respondents/participants?
• When was the data collected?

(Adopted from information on the UCSF Family Health Outcomes Project web site)

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Who is missed or not counted well in “standard” surveys? �(ie, census, CDC surveys, etc.)

• Trans and non-binary folks
• Multiracial folks
• Disaggregated AANHPI, and other racial/ethnic identities
• etc.

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See:

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34999778
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34757013
• https://nces.ed.gov/fCSM/ICSP_Agencies.asp

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Reliability and Validity

Reliable data collection: relatively free from "measurement error."

• Is the device used to measure elapsed time in an experiment accurate?
• Is the survey written at a reading level too high for the people completing it?

Validity refers to how well a measure assesses what it claims to measure

• If the survey is supposed to measure "quality of life," how is that concept defined?
• How accurately can this animal study of drug metabolism be extrapolated to humans?

(Adopted from Chapter 3, Conducting research literature reviews : from the Internet to paper, by Arlene Fink; Sage, 2010.)

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Yay! Success

How Not to Use Data Like a Racist

Screenshots from How Not to Use Data Like a Racist, presented by Heather Krause, of We All Count

Is it “health”?

��Let’s find some statistics!��tinyurl.com/stats4dlab

Did you experience enjoyment yesterday?

Thank you!

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Michael Sholinbeck,

Public Health Librarian/Interim Optometry Liaison

msholinb@library.berkeley.edu