SHADAC Staff

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Now Available on State Health Compare: Eleven Updated Measures and One Brand New Measure

Estimates for measures from a variety of categories (Health Outcomes, Health Behaviors, Access to Care, Cost of Care, and Social and Economic Factors, etc.) have now been updated on SHADAC’s State Health Compare web tool. All measures now contain data for 2018, the most recent year available. State Health Compare has also added a brand new measure, Adult E-Cigarette Use.

Updated Measures Include:

Income Inequality
Using the Gini coefficient (a summary of the dispersion of income across the entire income distribution), this measure gauges disparities in income in each state on a scale from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating greater inequality and lower values indicating the opposite. Estimates for all states are now available from 2006 through 2018.

Sales of Opioid Painkillers
This measure captures the rate of legal prescription opioid painkiller sales in kilograms per 100,000 people per year for both hydrocodone and oxycodone—the most common types of prescription opioids. Data is now available for all states from 2000 through 2018.

Adults Who Forgo Needed Medical Care*
The measure indicates the percent of adults (18+) in each state who could not get needed medical care due to cost. Breakdowns by education level and race/ethnicity are available for all states from 2005 through 2010 and 2011 through 2018.

Adults With No Personal Doctor*
This measure denotes the percent of adults without a personal doctor and is now available for all states from 2005 through 2010 and 2011 through 2018. Breakdowns by education level and race/ethnicity are also available.

Adult Cancer Screenings*
The measure is an indication of the percent of adults who have received recommended cancer screenings (e.g., colorectal screenings, mammograms, pap smears, etc.) in the past year, and is now available for all states from 2005 through 2010 and 2011 through 2018.

Chronic Disease Prevalence*
This measure captures the percent of adults who reported having one or more common chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, and asthma, in each state. Estimates are now available for all states from 2005 through 2010 and 2011 through 2018.

Activities Limited due to Health Difficulty*
This measure reports the average number of days (in the last 30 days) for which an adult indicates limited activity due to mental or physical health difficulties. It is now available for all states from 2005 through 2010 and 2011 through 2018.

Adult Obesity*
The measure is an indication of the prevalence of obesity, defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) > 30, among the adult population 18 years of age and over. It is now available for all states from 2005 through 2010 and 2011 through 2018.

Adult Binge Drinking*
This measure indicates the percent of adults who, on one occasion, have consumed at least four drinks (women) or five (men) or more in the past 30 days. Now available for all states from 2005 through 2010 and 2011 through 2018, the measure includes breakdowns by education level and race/ethnicity.

Adult Smoking*
This measure indicates the percent of adults over 18 years of age who have smoked 100 or more cigarettes in their lifetime, and who currently smoke some days or every day. It is now available for all states from 2005 through 2010, and 2011 through 2018.

Adult E-Cigarette Use (Newly available measure on State Health Compare)
This measure indicates the percent of the adult population (18 years of age and over) who currently use e-cigarette some days or every day. It is now available for all states from 2016 through 2017 and for most states for 2018. Breakdowns are available by education level and race/ethnicity.

Data Sources
The State Health Compare estimates for income inequality come from the American Community Survey (ACS); the sales of opioid painkillers comes from the U.S. DEA’s Automated Reports Consolidated Ordering System Retail Drug Summary Reports; and the measures of chronic disease prevalence, activities limited due to health difficulty, and the adults who forgo needed medical care, adults with no personal doctor, and adult cancer screenings, obesity, binge drinking, smoking, and e-cigarette use measures all come from the Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).

Notes
All measures marked with an “*”: This indicates a break in series due to the BRFSS implementing cell phone sampling and an advanced weighting method in 2011.