In July 2000 the Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) Project released a first-ever Community Health Status Report for every United States county. The initial project was the result of Health Resources and Services Administration funding, collaborations with National Association of County and City Health Officials and Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, and the coordination and leadership of the Public Health Foundation. An Advisory Group of federal, state, and local officials and academics guided the development and design of the county reports.
For each of the 3082 counties in the United States, there is an easy-to-use, 16-page Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) Report. This concise set of indicators focuses on access to care, leading causes of death, risk factors, environmental health, and other top measures. The first of their kind, the CHSI reports allow counties to compare their health status to areas with similar demographics, the U.S., and Healthy People 2010 targets. Health departments, governance boards, community groups, and others interested in local health improvement planning and benchmarking. Individual county reports can still be obtained by contacting staff in the partner agencies, purchasing a CD ROM, or contacting the local health department itself. A sample count report is available here for Orange County, California.
Actual data (7.3 mb Excel spreadsheet) used in the reports are compiled in an Excel spreadsheet for analysts interested in the health of jurisdictions throughout the U.S. Each worksheet of the file contains data for each page of the county report and a data dictionary (95 kb PDF) details the variables available. See above for a sample report. You can read about data sources and definitions in the Community Health Status Report: Data sources, Definitions, and Notes (185 kb PDF) booklet.
