Healthcare metrics

[seanjtaylor]

Can we track healthcare coverage over time? Maybe the best thing to do is to figure out a way to run a survey here.

[MSilb7]

Seems like this site has some useful datasets: https://www.healthdata.gov/

[seamus-mckinsey]

I don't know of a source of data on health insurance coverage that is timely, accessible, and exportable. Kind of shocking, I know, given the intensity of focus on this issue over the last 8 years. However, Healthdata.gov is a very rich source of datasets on access to, quality of, and cost of health care, as well as population health. I'm continuing to search for other sources of coverage data, but I'll also compile some alternative datasets that would also be good measures of health care access, as well as other aspects like quality and cost.

Here's a quick summary of the issues with data that is available:
- CDC: We'd need to export data from large and unwieldy pdfs. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) conducts the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) every year to provide estimates for health insurance coverage. The official reports are released annually, but they do have quarterly "early releases" of the data, with the caveat that these files are produced before "final data editing and weighting have been performed." More bad news, from what I can see, the actual data isn't released, only pdf reports with the data in appendices. To get the data, you have to submit a proposal/request.

- Census: Not timely enough. The Census Bureau conducts annual surveys of health insurance, but doesn't release the data until September of the following year (e.g., September 2016 for 2015 data), which I'm guessing is too slow for our purposes.

- Other foundations: not timely enough. For example, the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation promoting improved health and health care, also conducts a survey, but only every two years.

[tylermenezes]

The original README mentions both public health as a whole and healthcare.

On the subject of healthcare as a whole, you might want to look into IHME's US counties data: http://www.healthdata.org/us-county-profiles