Health Report

Examine each of these web sites providing general information on public health.

Which ones would be most useful for large suburban county (about 500,000

population) that was conducting a comprehensive assessment of health needs as

part of a community health improvement process? Briefly justify your choices.

o Healthfinder a DHHS-sponsored gateway site that provides links to more than

550 web sites (including more than 200 Federal sites and 350 state, local,

not-for-profit, university and other consumer health sources), links to nearly

500 selected online documents, links to frequently asked questions on health

issues, and links to databases and web search engines by topic and agency

o Fedstats a gateway to a variety of federal agency data and information,

including health statistics

o National Center for Health Statistics, an invaluable resource for data and

information. Visit its Health United States 2004 Web Site where you can find

and download the very useful publication, Health United States 2004 with

Trends in the Health of Americans Chart Book. This can be downloaded or

viewed from the NCHS web site. (Note: this is a very large file that is not

easily viewed or downloaded using modem connections to the Internet. High

speed Internet connections work best for downloading this publication!)

o CDC Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Reports and MMWR morbidity and

mortality data by time and place

o CDC WONDER system

o IPLAN data set for Illinois counties and communities (IPLAN = Illinois Project

for Local Assessment of Needs)

o Chicago data by community area: Volume 1, Volume 2

o US census data---the best general denominator data anywhere

5. Compare the Public Health Achievements in Twentieth-Century America presented in

Chapter 1 (Control of Infectious Diseases, including Advances in Childhood

Immunizations) and Chapter 2 (Tobacco Use). Both are available at the Century of

Progress in Public Health case study site. Which of these achievements (infectious

disease reduction or tobacco use reduction), in your opinion, has had the greater

impact on the heath status and quality of life of Americans living in the year 2000?

Identify three specific criteria you used to compare these accomplishments and

provide data for each criteria for both accomplishments.

6. After reviewing the Tobacco Use achievement from the Century of Progress in Public

Health case study site, select a specific health outcome (other than lung cancer)

related to tobacco use and analyze that health problem for its determinants and

contributing factors, using the method described in the text. Identify at least two

major determinants for that problem. For each determinant, identify at least two

direct contributing factors, and for each direct contributing factor, identify at least

two indirect contributing factors.

7. Population, poverty, and pollution are sometimes cited as the 3 most important

factors influencing global health status today. After examining the World Health

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Organization (WHO) web