Rural Data for Rural Cancer Efforts

Iowa Data: https://hhs.iowa.gov/brfss

Types of Data: Health behaviors including nutrition, physical activity, tobacco use, hypertension, blood cholesterol, alcohol use, and access to health care.

URL: https://www.cdc.gov/places/

Types of Data: Data on county, census-tract, or places throughout the country, including: Health outcomes; Prevention; Health risk behaviors; Health Status

Comments: Includes an interactive map and data downloads

URL: https://wonder.cdc.gov/

Types of Data: Public health data including deaths by cause (including cancer—ICD-10 codes:C00-C97)

Comments:

• All cancer and cancer-specific crude and age-adjusted mortality rates by non-metropolitan and metropolitan comparisons or other combinations of the CDC’s Urban-Rural Classification of Counties
  • You can also stratify by race/ethnicity, age, and gender
  • Trends and combined year analyses (best practices: use 5-year estimates)
  • You can do county-specific mortality rates, but even for 5 years combined you’re likely to have suppressed data
• Can generate text files

URL: https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/

Iowa Data: https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/explore-health-rankings/iowa

Types of Data: Health Outcomes (Length and Quality of Life); Health Factors (Behaviors, Clinical Care, Social and economic factors, physical environment); Additional measures.

Comments: County Health Rankings considers many factors to rank counties within a state based upon policies and programs, health factors, and health outcomes.

URL: https://www.statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/

Iowa Data: https://www.statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/quick-profiles/index.php?statename=iowa

Types of Data: State and county-level data: Demographics; Screening and Risk Factors; Incidence; Mortality

Comments:

• Maps, downloadable tables, graphs of trends
• No statewide rural-specific data, but county-level data can be helpful (e.g., identifying high mortality counties—are these rural?)
• Caveats: some county-level data are somewhat dated, some states don’t report cancer data, some data are suppressed

URL: https://shri.public-health.uiowa.edu/

Types of Data: Case counts, incidence and mortality rates for specific cancer sites by year of diagnosis, age, gender, race and county.

URL: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/coverage/teenvaxview/index.html

Types of Data: Vaccination, including Human Papillomavirus (HPV)

URL: https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/uscs/index.htm

Types of Data: Cancer incidence and mortality rates by county and Congressional District and cancer type (2020* or 2016-2020)

Comments: 2020 data should be interpreted with caution due to the pandemic

URL: https://vizhub.healthdata.org/subnational/usa

Types of Data: County level estimates for: Life Expectancy; Mortality; Risk Factors. Subgroups available (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity, age) for some measures.