Health Agency | Public Health

You may notice that disease case counts sometimes change over time and local numbers sometimes differ from state reports for the same time period. The reasons involve state and local systems used to report, track and de-duplicate data. 

State review. Case counts most often change over time for chronic reportable diseases, those that stay with a patient for years or even a lifetime. In these cases, health care providers or labs in different counties may report the same patient’s illness to different local health departments. This commonly happens when a patient travels to see a specialist or lives near the border of two counties, such as in Santa Maria, and gets health care in both. While each local health department only has access to their own data and cannot see this duplication, the state department of public health reviews cases from all counties and de-duplicates cases reported in multiple jurisdictions. This review leads to revised local numbers, often a year or more after initial reporting.

Local review. In other cases, numbers may change after local review. For example, state reports on opioid deaths are based on ICD-10 codes. Locally, our epidemiologist also closely reviews death certificates and specific information sources (such as coroner’s toxicology reports) and may identify additional cases through this review. In a common example, a death may be coded as a cardiac arrest, when in fact the cardiac arrest was caused by opioid overdose. This review is important in understanding the local epidemiology of an illness or injury, and is particularly relevant given SLO County’s relatively small population. 

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps 
The University of Washington Population Health Institute provides counties with select measures of health factors and outcomes as an annual snapshot. 

SLO Health Counts 
SLO Health Counts is a health data hub that makes local health information easy to find and understand.

CA Department of Finance Demographic Forecasts
The California Department of Finance provides the most accurate demographic data and population forecasts for the region.

California Health Interview Survey (CHIS)
The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) is a survey of all Californians conducted every other year through UCLA to collect data on selected health indicators from various age groups in California. The data is collected and reported on a central website, and available for comparison across years of the survey.

Infectious Disease Data
The California Department of Public Health Infectious Disease Branch provides yearly summaries of communicable diseases in California. 

California Emerging Infections Program (CEIP)
As one of 12 Emerging Infections Program sites, CEIP is a resource for the surveillance, prevention, and control of emerging infectious diseases.

County Health Status Profiles
The California Department of Public Health Research and Analytics Branch provides three-year average rates and percentages for California and county public health indicators as well as interactive statewide mortality trend visualizations. 
 

National Center for Health Statistics 
The National Center for Health Statistics releases national disease rates and numbers of new cases for select nationally notifiable diseases.

Healthy People 2030
Healthy People 2030 is a national initiative aimed at improving the health of all Americans by 2030. Healthy People 2030 sets data-driven objectives to measure the nation’s progress in critical areas of public health.

CDC WONDER
CDC WONDER provides access to public health data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

U.S. Census Data
The U.S. Census Bureau collects and reports on a variety of data about America's changing population, housing and workforce through the U.S. Census, the American Community Survey, the Economic Census, and more.