Surveillance and Data — Blogs and Stories
Read our stories and blogs to learn more about our innovative work, programs, collaborations, and people driving surveillance and data at CDC … and beyond
“Excess Death” Data Point to Pandemic’s True Toll
In the United States, there have been hundreds of thousands of deaths attributed to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. But CDC scientists suspect there may be more people who died, either from undiagnosed COVID-19 or from other causes related to the pandemic.
From Research to Response: Survey Shifts Gears During COVID-19
The scientists who designed the Research and Development Survey (RANDS) could never have foreseen the current global pandemic. But when COVID-19 struck, they recognized the tool was uniquely ready to meet the needs of the response.
Novel COVID-19 survey takes nation’s social, mental “Pulse”
The effects of COVID-19 go beyond numbers of cases and deaths. How many people are struggling under the stresses of the pandemic? The experimental Household Pulse Survey is helping to measure these other costs – and get answers before it’s too late to act.
Making Modernization Work… For Everyone
In Maryland, we’ve changed the way we capture information about deaths. We’ve made our death reporting systems more electronic, connected, and responsive. We’ve rewritten our policies and regulations.
To Make Death Data Faster, Just Listen
Information from death certificates can lead us toward more effective disease prevention, better cures, and healthier lives. When crisis strikes, timely and high-quality death information becomes even more critical.
Charting a Different Course for Death Data
When plans don’t go as expected, the best resource you’ll ever have is the right people. Here at the vital records office in Indiana, we encountered some unexpected twists and turns in trying to speed up our death reporting, but we always kept moving in the right direction through the sheer ingenuity of our team.
A New View of Life Expectancy
Do you know what life expectancy is where you live? A new, first-of-its-kind map from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) lets you explore detailed life expectancy estimates across the United States, down to the census tract level.
Data Science Reveals Suicide Trends
When a team of four scientists at the National Center for Health Statistics—working in different divisions and offering different expertise—came together to examine suicide data, they made a leap in data analysis so innovative it earned them CDC’s highest honor for scientific work.
New Data Provides a Deeper Understanding of Life Expectancy Gapsexternal icon
First-of-its-kind data, compiled by the United States Small-Area Life Expectancy Estimate Project (USALEEP), mean that life expectancy at birth estimates are now available nationwide – down to the neighborhood level – for virtually every community in America. The first universal measure of health at a neighborhood level reveals gaps that may previously have gone unnoticed.
Interoperability Begins with People
When it comes to making data interoperable, we think about making better connections between systems. But in focusing on the technology, we sometimes undervalue the connections we need to make between people.
How a Forward Thinking Workforce Drives Progress
Connecting the right talent, technology, and teamwork is a powerful way to advance solutions to modern health challenges. It’s also one way that CDC is enhancing surveillance through innovation—by focusing on the people behind the data.
Breaking Down Barriers for Drug Death Data
Each year, about 100,000 people die in the state of New York, not including deaths that occur within New York City. The momentous task of reporting these deaths falls to the state’s 3,000 funeral directors, 57 county coroner and medical examiners’ offices, 1,400+ local registrars, and approximately 70,000 licensed medical certifiers.
Deaths of Despair: How Connecting Opioid Data Extends the Possibilities for Suicide Research
At the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), we are using research to help turn the tide. As a research agency, we often uncover clues – and new questions – by examining mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System. The equation is simple: the more complete death record information we have, and the faster we have it, the better the research we can do to save lives.
Modernizing the Flow of Death Data is Lifesaving Work
As the opioid overdose crisis looms large over our country, there is no doubt that improving data on how, when, and where people are losing their lives to drug overdoses will help prevent additional overdose deaths. But as we improve our ability to collect and share drug overdose death data, we also have an impact that reaches far beyond this epidemic.
Drugs, Death, and Data
Information from death certificates was one of the earliest sources of surveillance data, and mortality data still supports public health decision-making today in a host of ways. Finding tools and methods to better collect this information and exchange it more easily is a priority, especially when it comes to addressing the latest public health emergency: the epidemic of drug overdose deaths.
Connecting Data Helps Combat the Opioid Epidemic
To keep up with the fast-moving opioid epidemic, CDC scientists from different centers work together to examine the timeliest data available to the agency on emergency department visits for opioid overdoses across multiple states. By combining surveillance data from two systems, experts can get a more detailed and timely view of this public health emergency.
Modernizing our Public Health Surveillance Systemsexternal icon
CDC’s surveillance systems serve critical public health functions, but many of our systems use aging technologies that have been patched together over time and need to be rebuilt or replaced. We are exploring technologies such as application programming interfaces (APIs) and micro-services that are used successfully by many other organizations to deliver timely, high-quality data when and where it is needed.
A Primer on FHIR: Lightweight, Reusable Web Technologies Can Help Solve Substantial Real-World Health Challengesexternal icon
Thanks to advancements in technology and national incentives, physical health records largely have become digitized, and their roles have evolved beyond just documenting care. Data captured in electronic health records is used to create a deeper understanding of wellness and diseases, identify threats to public health, and guide policy changes. Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), or “fire” as it’s pronounced, is critical to this paradigm shift.
Promoting Dignity, Through Data Accuracy, for the Deadexternal icon
All information captured on death certificates—such as race, gender, and marital status—matters. Capturing the information in a timely and accurate way is more than just an administrative requirement with public health benefits. It’s an opportunity to provide a sense of closure, maintain dignity, and respect the wishes of those who have departed.
The American Way of Death Dataexternal icon
Information about mortality is valuable, but it is also difficult to gather accurately and efficiently nationwide because it can come from an array of sources. The CDC has been working to make gathering mortality data across the country easier, more secure, and more efficient by accelerating use of emerging IT tools and other efforts across public health organizations.
How We Die Matters: Improving Cause-of-Death Dataexternal icon
When important details about how someone died are captured on death certificates, that data can greatly enhance existing public health surveillance efforts and help us understand epidemics. Today, several acceptable ways of writing cause-of-death statements exist, yet the level of precision required can be daunting and confusing, especially when evidence is incomplete or there are multiple conditions present at the time of death. Still, there are a number of ways we can make improvements.
Read about progress in syndromic surveillance.
See stories on how vital statistics are moving forward.
See how informatics is improving how our data moves.
Learn about modernizing case surveillance.