Health Data & Statistics

Health Statistics may be located in published sources, nonpublished or "grey" literature, and many random government and private sources on the web.  They are not as easily found as the more standard scholarly literature that is organized in bibliographic databases. “Statistical results—the particular number, answer or data you need—may be hiding in the deep structure of a report or table. This means that simple searches will fail to retrieve all of the relevant material.” http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/usestats/successful_search_strategies.html

This guide is organized into the following areas for locating health statistics:

• Published works
• Specialized portals,
  
  • NY City
  • NY State
  • National
  • International
  • Social/Demographic
• Search engines
• Aggregated sources/summaries
• Private Sources/Agency websites
• Grey literature

“Iterative Strategies:
"One set of results or findings defines the next search that in turn sets up the subsequent searches. This activity is never really ‘done’ but hopefully, users reach a point where the amount of information satisfies their needs." *

link to an online tutorial: Finding and Using Health Statistics (NLM)

*Source: National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR). Finding and using health statistics. Retrieved February 14, 2010 from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/usestats/index.html