Working Together
for a Fit CNY

Explanatory Elements of Data

The data collected for the RHA project mirrors some of the focus areas for the federal initiative, Healthy People 2010 (HP 2010).  HP 2010 is a “comprehensive set of disease prevention and health promotion objectives for the Nation to achieve over the first decade of the new century. Created by scientists both inside and outside of Government, it identifies a wide range of public health priorities and specific, measurable objectives ” (www.healthypeople.gov)

The main goals of this initiative are to:

• Increase quality and years of healthy life
• Eliminate health disparities.  

To track the progress of this initiative, HP 2010 has outlined 28 “focus areas” which are health areas of interest.  The focus areas are as follows:

Of these twenty-eight focus areas, 10 are considered Leading Health Indicators, or major health issues facing the nation:

Regional Health Assessment Data

The data collected for the RHA project closely follows the format of HP 2010. This data collection is broken into the following focus areas:

Categories for RHA Data

Focus Area: Area of health interest

Objective Number:  Corresponding Health People 2010 objective number.  These objectives have been assigned numbers to help organize and track progress.  Healthy People 2010 also lists corresponding target rates for all of the objectives. 

Please note:  Data has been collected for some objectives that do not happen to be tracked by the Healthy People initiative.  Those objectives will have an “N/A” listed as an objective number and will not have a corresponding Healthy People 2010 target rate.

Objective Title: The description of what is being measured

County:  Name of the county

8 county rate: A strictly arithmetic rate computation for the eight counties (not weighted or age adjusted); might not be available for every objective.

Upstate:  A strictly arithmetic rate computation (unless otherwise noted, rate is not weighted or age adjusted) for all counties in New York State that excludes New York City (Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens and Richmond counties); might not be available for every objective.

NewYork: Objective rate for New York State

US: Objective rate for the United States

HP 2010 Target Rate:  Healthy People 2010 goal for each health measure, to be reached by year 2010

Asterisk (*): Data from BRFSS survey that is group rate for 2-3 counties

Double asterisk (**): Small number of cases; interpret rate with caution

A State rate with “1)” indicates that State data are from a different source (ex: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey) than national (ex: National Health Interview Survey) and may not be comparable.

DSU: Data do not meet the criteria for statistical reliability, data quality or confidentiality

N/A: Not available