National Profile of Local Health Departments, United States, 2016, Restricted-Use Level 1 Data (ICPSR 37144)

Version Date: Oct 23, 2018

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Principal Investigator(s):
National Association of County & City Health Officials (U.S.)

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37144.v1

Version V1

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Summary

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.

Data from the National Profile of Local Health Departments survey are used by:

  1. LHD staff members to compare their LHD or those within their states to others nationwide;
  2. Policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels to inform public health policy and support projects to improve local public health practice;
  3. Universities to educate future public health workforce members about LHDs;
  4. Researchers to address questions about public health practice; and
  5. NACCHO staff to develop programs and resources that meet the needs of LHDs and to advocate effectively for LHDs.

Data included as part of this collection includes the Public-Use (Restricted-Use Level 1) data of the National Profile of Local Health Departments 2016 study. The dataset includes 1930 cases for 1112 variables.

Citation

National Association of County & City Health Officials (U.S.). National Profile of Local Health Departments, United States, 2016, Restricted-Use Level 1 Data. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2018-10-23. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37144.v1

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Funding

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (71723), United States Department of Health and Human Services. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (5U38HM000449-05;1U38OT000172-01)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

None

Restrictions

Users must complete the Public-Use Data Agreement to access the Public-Use Version of the data. Please reference the user agreement included as part of this study's documentation for further information.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2016

Date of Collection

2016-01-01 -- 2016-12-31

Data Collection Notes

  1. This is the eighth National Profile of Local Health Departments conducted by NACCHO. The previous rounds were conducted in 1989-1990, 1992-1993, 1996-1997, 2005, 2008, 2010, and 2013. ICPSR also houses the 2013 Profile (ICPSR 34990), the 2010 Profile (ICPSR 32922), and the 2008 Profile (ICPSR 26962), but not the earlier rounds.

  2. More information about this study can be found on the NACCHO Web site.

  3. The restricted-use data (Restricted-Use Level 2) associated with the National Profile of Local Health Departments 2016 Study can be found in ICPSR 37145.
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Study Purpose

The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) regularly conducts two surveys to assess local health department (LHD) infrastructure and activities over time. The National Profile of Local Health Departments (commonly referred to as "the Profile study") collects information on LHD infrastructure, workforce, finance, governance, activities, and services. The purpose of this survey was to advance and support the development of a database for LHDs to describe and understand their structure, function, and capacities.

Study Design

Every Profile study has used the same definition of a Local Health Department (LHD): an administrative or service unit of local or state government, conerned with health, and carrying some responsibility for the health of a jurisdiction smaller than the state. For the 2016 Profile study, a total of 2,533 of the approximately 3,000 agencies in the United States that met this definition by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACHHO) were included in the study population. NACCHO distributed the 2016 Profile questionnaire to these 2,533 LHDs from January through April 2016. The Profile survey includes a core questionnaire (sent to all LHDs) and two module questionnaires (sent to statistical samples of LHDs). National estimates for LHDs in the United States were computed using appropriate estimation weights to account for differential non-response and, for module questions, sampling.

Sample

The survey attempted to interview all of the Local Health Departments (LHDs) in the survey universe. Stratified random sampling was used to select LHDs that were assigned one of the two modules of supplementary questions. Altogether, 1,284 LHDs received the core questions only, 625 the core questions plus Module 1, and 624 the core questions plus Module 2. Hawaii and Rhode Island were excluded from the study because their state health departments operate on behalf of local public health and have no sub-state units.

The National Association of County and City Health Officials' (NACHHO) definition of a Local Health Department was: an administrative or service unit of local or state government, concerned with health, and carrying some responsibility for the health of a jurisdiction smaller than the state.

Time Method

Longitudinal: Cohort / Event-based

Universe

Agencies in the United States that met the National Association of County and City Health Officials' (NACHHO) definition of a Local Health Department.

Unit(s) of Observation

Local Health Department

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Response Rates

76 percent (1,933 of 2,533 Local Health Departments)

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Original Release Date

2018-10-23

Version History

2018-10-23 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:

  • Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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Weight

Several weights were generated and one should be used for any analysis. For questions located in the core questionnaire, a proportional weight (C0COREWEIGHT_P) to account for non-respondents should be used. An additional scalar weight (C0COREWEIGHT_S) was generated for analyses to generate total numbers instead of percentages. For questions in the module sections, the corresponding module weights (C0MODWEIGHT1 or C0MODWEIGHT2) should be used for all analyses.

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Notes

  • 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.

HMCA logo

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.