Arizona Department of Health Services launches public data portal

PHOENIX — Arizona health officials are making it easier to analyze the state’s health statistics through a new portal.

The Public Health Data Portal is changing the game by making it easier for people to search through data troves put together by the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS).

Essentially, this change frees the public from having to hunt down different datasets. Now, all of the numbers are together in one easy-to-use website.

How does the Public Health Data Portal work?

There are five separate sections of the site where users can peruse public health data. The first is a collection of data explorers.

Clicking on this big, colorful icon takes netizens to a page that allows them to search, interact and download various types of ADHS data, like maps, graphs and tables that cover different types of environmental health topics.

That’s all that’s available as of Thursday afternoon, but there’s a data explorer tool that is “coming soon,” according to the website.

A description of the tool says it will allow users to analyze different types of health topics — not just those related to the environment.

The site’s second section is devoted to reports and catalogs. Like the first, this section has a tool that’s coming soon. That would be a section devoted to community profiles, which analyzes different Arizona communities to reveal each area’s commonly searched health issues.

However, it also has seven tools that are currently available:

• Metadata catalog and data profiles.
• ADHS reports from archives, public records and the Arizona State Library.
• AZ Care Check, which lets users search information on licensing history. It can reveal issues with facilities and providers.
• A database of health care facilities and providers that is updated each month.
• Arizona Genealogy: A searchable collection of birth records.
• Healthcare provider revocations: A database that identifies health professionals who have had their licenses revoked (or who have surrendered their licenses).
• Health professionals workforce repository: A collection of data on medical professionals licenses by the Arizona Boards of Health.

After that, the third section of the Public Health Data Portal offers public health data assets. Users can search a comprehensive list of public health data assets. They can also submit requests for new types of data.

Dashboards comprise the fourth section of the site. Clicking on this graphic button takes users to a page full of public health dashboards. Bright graphics make it easier to comb through the numbers on cancer, tuberculosis, opioid use, suicide and more.

The fifth section is all about maps. It has map-based content including spatial data (GIS) assets various interactive maps that cover topics like food deserts, Hepatitis C, wildfire facilities and more.

Ways to improve Arizona’s new Public Health Data Portal

After the first five sections, there is another section where users can suggest ways to improve the Public Health Data Portal. Through the “Suggest Data” tool, they can ask officials to add new types of health data to their collection.

It ensures no stone goes unturned when it comes to analyzing the full picture of the state of health in Arizona.

There’s also a section voted to policies and terms of use as well as a help section.