Posts Tagged ‘Vital Statistics’

Annual Abortion Report Published

September 18th, 2012

A couple of years ago a bill was passed that required our agency to do a comprehensive statistical report about abortion in Arizona. We published our second annual report this week… which includes data compiled from elective abortion procedures reports, complications from abortions reports and petitions filed authorizing abortions to minors. Facilities that provide the procedure are required to send us the required data elements every month (electronically). 

Over the last couple of years, we’ve been working hard to make sure that all providers are reporting as required by law. In years past… we think we were missing data because of under-reporting by providers. This year’s report suggests that those efforts to boost reporting are paying off. During 2011 (calendar year) there were a total of 14,401 abortions compared to 11,438 abortions in 2010… which is a 26% increase in the number of reported abortions. I underlined the word “reported” because when you look inside the data, it appears that some of the increase is attributable to better reporting and enhanced surveillance. You can read the full report on our Vital Statistics website. 

Let’s tie this report to our Strategic Plan  for a second- particularly our mission to reduce teen pregnancy.  We already know that AZ has had one of the steepest declines in teen pregnancy in the last few years when compared to the other states.  In this report, we see that despite the increase in the overall abortion rate (at least partially attributable to better reporting), the abortion rates for women 15 to 19 years of age declined by 30% in the last 10 years- consistent with declines in the number of teen pregnancies in AZ.

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Babies, Babies, Babies

October 27th, 2010

More interesting information from Vital Statistics– this time about babies and births in Arizona.  The number of births each year in AZ has been on a downward trend for the last couple of years, and 2009 was no exception.  There were a lot fewer babies born in 2009 (92,616)   than in 2007 (102,687)- which is an overall drop of 10% over 2 years.  There was a 16% drop in birth numbers of Hispanics or Latinos   in 2009.  We don’t know for sure, but that may be because there are fewer Hispanics or Latinos in the state. Hispanics faced the economic recession in 2008-2009, like everyone else, but also additional legal challenges such as the employer-sanction law (a penalty on employers hiring illegal immigrants), and e-verify (checking the legal-residence status of those seeking employment).

One good drop in numbers for babies is the infant mortality rate .  Arizona’s infant mortality rate decreased by 22% between 2007 and 2009.  It’s still tragic that 547 infants died before reaching their first birthday, but the 2007 rate of 6 deaths per 1,000 births is the lowest in the State’s history.  Birth weight is one of the most important predictors of an infant’s survival chances (Figure 2C-3) <http://www.azdhs.gov/plan/report/ahs/ahs2009/pdf/text_infants.pdf> . Together, births of infants weighing less than 1 Kilogram accounted for 0.6% of births but 44%- a sobering statistic.  Infants weighing less than 500 grams had a very high mortality rate (93%).  Clearly birth weight is a critical factor for reducing our mortality rate moving forward.  More about that in a future update.

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Another New AZ Health Status & Vital Statistics Report

September 28th, 2010

We published one of our most popular annual documents this month, our 500-page Arizona Health Status and Vital Statistics Annual Report.  It provides refined health statistics on pregnancies, births, reportable diseases, deaths, inpatient hospitalizations, emergency room visits, marriages, divorces and population of the State. The site got more than 2,000,000 hits last year!  The report provides needed data for health policy formulation, local, state, and federal programs and interventions, and resource allocation. All universities in the State utilize our Arizona-specific health status reports in classroom teaching.

In addition, we’ve prepared and published 17 (grant-funded) health status monitoring monographs on public health issues of special concern in the State such as mortality from exposure to excessive heat, community vital statistics, emergency room visit and inpatient hospitalization patterns, asthma, diabetes, alcohol & substance abuse, influenza and pneumonia, injury and behavioral health disorders.  In the coming year, we’ll add a report called “Heart Disease v. Cancer: An Epidemiologic Transition in Mortality Risks”, which will highlight the fact that cancer has replaced heart disease as the leading cause of death in Arizona.

OK, but who is doing this work?  Believe it or not, we do all this with just 2 Full Time Employees (Christopher Mrela and Clare Torres).  But that’s not all they do…  they also maintain and develop the popular website, systematically updating approximately 40 online reports, collect monthly marriage and divorce statistics from the Clerk of the Superior Court; develop customized annual population estimates; and respond to 2,500 requests annually from concerned individuals and health professionals in need of health status data, data-based information, and technical assistance.

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Another New AZ Health Status & Vital Statistics Report

September 28th, 2010

We published one of our most popular annual documents this month, our 500-page Arizona Health Status and Vital Statistics Annual Report.  It provides refined health statistics on pregnancies, births, reportable diseases, deaths, inpatient hospitalizations, emergency room visits, marriages, divorces and population of the State. The site got more than 2,000,000 hits last year!  The report provides needed data for health policy formulation, local, state, and federal programs and interventions, and resource allocation. All universities in the State utilize our Arizona-specific health status reports in classroom teaching.

In addition, we’ve prepared and published 17 (grant-funded) health status monitoring monographs on public health issues of special concern in the State such as mortality from exposure to excessive heat, community vital statistics, emergency room visit and inpatient hospitalization patterns, asthma, diabetes, alcohol & substance abuse, influenza and pneumonia, injury and behavioral health disorders.  In the coming year, we’ll add a report called “Heart Disease v. Cancer: An Epidemiologic Transition in Mortality Risks”, which will highlight the fact that cancer has replaced heart disease as the leading cause of death in Arizona.

OK, but who is doing this work?  Believe it or not, we do all this with just 2 Full Time Employees (Christopher Mrela and Clare Torres).  But that’s not all they do…  they also maintain and develop the popular website, systematically updating approximately 40 online reports, collect monthly marriage and divorce statistics from the Clerk of the Superior Court; develop customized annual population estimates; and respond to 2,500 requests annually from concerned individuals and health professionals in need of health status data, data-based information, and technical assistance.

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New Vital Statistics computer application

August 16th, 2010

We have developed a new computer application and website to support the new abortion reporting requirements introduced with the passing of SB1304 into law.  This new law requires additional information to be provided to AHDS when abortions are performed or complications develop.  Currently, medical providers are required to report particular information to ADHS in an effort to collect Arizona specific data regarding abortion care. In the past this reporting has been manual via paper and we took this opportunity to automate this data collection by creating a reporting website for provider use.  In addition, we created a user registration site so that the management of users could be streamlined with self-service for account establishment and password management and we created an administration site for ADHS use.   Training has been developed and is available for new users. This project had an extremely short development cycle so it took a true team effort. Thanks to all who were involved!  The team consisted of both Vital Statistics and ITS personnel including  Beverlee Hall, Christopher Mrela, Richard Porter, Frank Caglio,  Madan Gopal, Ellen Rayer, Michelle St. Germain, Michael Conklin, Shandy Odell, Jeanie Milnes and Raghu Ramaswamy.

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Arizona Cancer Registry

May 5th, 2010

The ADHS Arizona Cancer Registry is a population-based surveillance system that collects, manages and analyzes information on the incidence, survival and mortality of persons having been diagnosed with cancer. We began collecting cancer case information in 1981.  The Registry has data available describing cancer in Arizona using a variety of descriptors, including site of origin, age, gender, race, ethnicity, geographic area, and year of diagnosis.  Strict confidentiality safeguards require that data be reported only in aggregate; no individual can be identified from a data.

A few years ago, we calculated cancer rates etc. on a county by county level- but didn’t have any pre-calculated analyses on a smaller scale.  This led to numerous requests for special analyses for smaller areas (with perceived “cancer clusters”) creating lots of extra work.  So, we revamped the program and created 126 pre-designated Community Health Analysis Areas (CHAAs) so that we can track rates over time and have more resolution with the rates.  You can see more in our CHAA Q & A fact sheet.  Using these CHAAs, we can map cancer rates over time in smaller areas.  If you’re interested, you can check out our 2001-2004 Cancer Incidence Reports on our Vital Statistics website.

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