michigan informatics

Search for Answers

Once you have formulated your question and clarified exactly what you need to find, the next step is to begin your search for answers. Finding the health statistics you want can be extremely difficult and you will often need to settle for finding statistics which address your problem and inform the answer to your question, but are not the exact numbers that you were hoping for. Many kinds of statistics simply will not exist. Either the data sets will not be large enough to allow for breakdown by local geographic areas, separate data sets will not be comparable because they were collected in dissimilar populations, or there is just no centralized organization which bothers to collect that data you are looking for. For example, you may want to know the number of Pap tests performed on women under 30 in your local community, but will only be able to find data on the number of Pap tests paid for by Medicaid for your state. Understanding the limitations of what data is collected, and by whom, is crucial to gauging your success in finding answers.

Before beginning your search, you should ask yourself the following questions:

1. What type of organization might collect this data?
   • U.S. federal agencies
   • State and local government
   • Non-profit organizations
   • Universities
   • Research centers
   • Professional associations
   • Hospitals
   • Insurance companies
   • Drug companies
   • School districts
   • Police departments
   • Publishers
2. How might this data be published?
   • Freely available on a web site
   • Published in a journal article
   • Freely available from an organization with permission following an application process
   • A proprietary database available only for a fee
3. Is this data confidential or otherwise sensitive?
4. Is it possible that no one collects this data?