NCHS Electronic Data Dissemination Program
Through this program with schools of public health and other institutions, NCHS provides free data tapes, diskettes, and CD-ROMs for faculty and students. Schools in turn agree to promote the availability of NCHS data and to report to us on their use of our data in teaching and research. To find out if your university is a member of this program–-or how it can become one-–contact our Educator Information Exchange, at nchseducators@cdc.gov.

Training Module for Public Health Practitioners
This course is designed to improve the ability of public health professionals to understand and use data routinely in their jobs. While intended primarily for health practitioners working in local and State health departments, the course may also be of use to students and faculty. Three modules present case studies dramatizing public health problems that can be addressed using data. The modules introduce the concept of quantitative data and its value for public health, describe major types of data available for analysis, and explore how these data are collected and analyzed and how they can be used to assess and to meet public health needs.

Internships and Research Fellowship Programs
NCHS works in collaboration with the American Statistical Association, the Association of Schools of Public Health, and other organizations to bridge the gap between academic scholars and the government’s health research programs. Interns and research fellows are provided with the opportunity to work on methodological problems and analytic issues relevant to NCHS programs. They work on research projects in residence at NCHS, use NCHS data and facilities, and interact with the NCHS staff.

Research Data Center
NCHS has developed a Research Data Center (RDC) that allows researchers and data users to access internal data files from its numerous surveys that have not been available to the research community until now. The internal files contain lower levels of geography such as State, county, census tract, block-group, or blocks, depending on the survey. Researchers may use the files to merge other contextual data from the Census Bureau, the Area Resource File, or other data collected or provided by the researcher to perform contextual analyses while maintaining confidentiality. Prospective researchers must submit a research proposal that will be reviewed for risk of disclosure, consistency with the NCHS mission, availability of RDC resources, and the feasibility of the project.

Data Users Conference
This conference provides a forum for university students and faculty, as well as for others from the public and private sector, to exchange information and experiences using health statistics information. Our most recent Conference was held July 10-12, 2006, in Washington, D.C. For more information on previous presentation topics, please see the 2006 Data Users Conference page.

Educator Information Exchange
To provide a forum for support and discussion on the use of educational resource materials, we have set up an educator information exchange.

The nchs.forum.cdc.gov is a lightly moderated discussion group for commenting on the application of NCHS statistical information in teaching and learning. This forum is intended for educators interested in sharing, developing, and implementing instructional activities using NCHS data.  We encourage you to subscribe and participate!

To subscribe to this forum, go to nchs.forum.cdc.gov.  You will be assigned a password via email and you will receive confirmation that you are subscribed.

After you have subscribed, you may review correspondence by going to the forum at nchs.forum.cdc.gov.  You may post messages by sending a message to: nchseducators@cdc.gov.

This page last reviewed June 12, 2007