Version Date: Feb 14, 2024 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Carolyn J. Leep, National Association of County and City Health Officials
Series:
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR32922.v3
Version V3 (see more versions)
Conducted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), the purpose of this survey of local health departments (LHDs) was to advance and support the development of a database for LHDs to describe and understand their structure, function, and capacities. A core set of questions was submitted to every LHD. In addition, some LHDs received one of two randomly assigned modules of supplemental questions. The core questions covered governance, funding, workforce (staffing levels, occupations employed, top executive education and licensure, and percentages of staff by race and Hispanic origin), LHD activities, and community health assessment and health improvement planning. The surveyed LHD activities include immunization, screening for diseases and conditions, treatment for communicable diseases, maternal and child health, epidemiology and surveillance activities, population-based primary prevention activities, and regulation, inspection and/or licensing activities. Topics covered by Module 1 included quality improvement, familiarity with a voluntary national accreditation program for state and local health departments, sharing of resources with other LHDs, emergency preparedness, and information technology. Module 2 examined human resources, policy-making and advocacy, access to health care services, practice-based research, health impact assessments, public health and law, and use of public health reports.
Export Citation:
As explained in the ICPSR Processing Note in the codebook, some variables are restricted from general dissemination for reasons of confidentiality. Users interested in obtaining the Restricted-Use Version of the Data, which contains both the restricted variables and the variables in the Public-Use Version of the Data (the not restricted variables), must complete an Agreement for the Use of Confidential Data, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research. Apply for access to the Restricted-Use Version of the Data through the ICPSR restricted data contract portal, which can be accessed via the study home page.
To obtain the Public-Use Version of the Data, users must submit a data request form (user agreement) which is provided together with the technical documentation for this study. Submission instructions are included on the form.
This is the sixth National Profile of Local Health Departments conducted by NACCHO. The previous rounds were conducted in 1989-1990, 1992-1993, 1996-1997, 2005, and 2008. ICPSR also houses the 2008 Profile (ICPSR 26962) but not the earlier rounds.
More information about this study can be found on the NACCHO Web site, www.naccho.org.
The survey attempted to interview all of the LHDs in the United States. Stratified random sampling was used to select the LHDs that were assigned one of the two modules of supplementary questions. Altogether, 1,316 LHDs received the core questions only, 624 the core questions plus Module 1, and 625 the core questions plus Module 2.
All LHDs in the United States. LHDs were defined as administrative or service units of local or state government concerned with health and carrying some responsibility for the health of a jurisdiction smaller than the state. The study excluded Hawaii and Rhode Island because their state health departments operate on behalf of local public health and have no sub-state units.
Overall, the study had a response rate of 82 percent: 2,107 of 2,565 LHDs.
Hide2012-05-01
2024-02-14 Online variable search capabilities have been added for this study.
2020-02-24 Online variable search capabilities have been added for this study.
2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:2014-07-03 The Public-Use Data Agreement has been revised.
2012-05-02 A minor change was made to the metadata.
2012-05-01 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.
This study is maintained and distributed by the Health and Medical Care Archive (HMCA). HMCA is the official data archive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
