New, Valuable, Health Data Now Available on State Health Department's Open Data Site, Health Data NY

Health Data NY supports Governor Cuomo's OPEN NY Initiative

Albany, N.Y, (May 24, 2013) -- The New York State Department of Health (DOH) announced today the release of new, valuable health data on its Health Data NY website (health.data.ny.gov), providing New Yorkers with 24/7 access to important health information.

The data published today on Health Data NY includes:

  • Student Weight Status Reporting Results (2010-2012): This dataset contains information on prevalence of overweight and obesity among students from 680 public school districts in New York State, exclusive of New York City. Data are also provided at the county, region and statewide levels. According to the data reported to Student Weight Status Category Reporting System, in 2010-12:
    • More than one-third (33.8%) of public school students were overweight or obese, with 17.6% considered obese.
    • The percentage of students considered obese was higher among middle and high school students (18.2%) than among elementary school students (17.2%).
    • The percentage of students considered obese varied across the seven regions of the state and among counties, ranging from 16.3% to 19.2% across seven regions and from 11.3% to 24.4% across the 57 counties.
  • HIV Ambulatory Care Quality Performance Indicators (2011): This dataset is comprised of self-reported performance data from HIV ambulatory care programs in New York State. The 2011 dataset, covering HIV care provided between January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011, includes submissions from 171 HIV clinics on a broad range of performance indicators, excluding 15 submissions from clinics that had five or fewer patients meeting the eligibility criteria.
  • Environmental Radiation Surveillance: This data continues the Environmental Radiation in New York State Annual Report, last published for 1994 sampling data. The Environmental Radiation Surveillance data provides information on radiation levels in the environment at several locations across the State over a number of years.
  • New York State DOH Prevention Agenda 2013-2017 Partner Information (2013): This dataset contains information about Department of Health contracted partners working on DOH's Prevention Agenda priority and focus areas. The Prevention Agenda 2013-17 is New York State's health improvement plan for 2013 through 2017. The dataset is organized by county, priority area and focus area.
    Each contractor's address, phone number and e-mail contact information are provided. The purpose of the dataset is to provide the public, health providers, and various DOH partners with basic information about partner organizations in New York State working on Prevention Agenda-related activities.

This newly published data builds on a wealth of data files and data visualizations currently available on Health Data NY. DOH will continue to publish data to the site on a regular basis. The Health Data NY site, supported by DOH's Maximizing Essential Tools for Research Innovation and eXcellence (METRIX) Project, is the only known open data site in the United States devoted solely to state health data accompanied by targeted public health messaging, extensive metadata and customized visualizations. Health Data NY not only provides raw data, but allows health care providers, researchers, legislators, advocates, academics, and the general public to analyze and download valuable health data in a variety of formats; review comprehensive metadata; create visualizations of the data; embed data and visualizations into their respective web sites with automatic refreshes from health.data.ny.gov; utilize Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to build mobile applications; and share data and visualizations through popular social media tools like Twitter and Facebook.

Health Data NY supports Governor Cuomo's OPEN NY initiative and its respective state data transparency website, open.ny.gov. Open.ny.gov provides user-friendly, one-stop access to data from New York State agencies, localities, and the federal government. All health data available on Health Data NY is also accessible at open.ny.gov.

For access to more health data and additional information about the METRIX Project, please visit Health Data NY at health.data.ny.gov. Additional state, local and federal government data is available at open.ny.gov.