Health Journalism Data
Discover the power of data in health care journalism with our curated archive of valuable statistics and trends.
Data Dive
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- Insurance
“Quick Health Data Online”
For health care journalists seeking information on women’s health insurance coverage and women’s health in general, the Office on Women’s…
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- Medical Studies
“Big data” datasets and databases used by researchers
We are well into the age of Big Data, in which researchers may use databases or other datasets with information…
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- Health Policy
2020 MLR Rebates by State
based on MLR reports filed through Oct. 21, 2021. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a report…
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- Medical Studies
Abortion
Court cases related to abortion continue to make their way to the Supreme Court every few years, and the issue…
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- Health Policy
ACOs earned nearly $2.3 billion in Medicare shared savings in 2020
More than two-thirds of accountable care organizations in the Medicare Shared Savings Program earned shared savings in 2020, according to…
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- Medical Studies
Agriculture and food data
Those reporting on food, farming, food-borne illnesses and related topics may find several links from the Department of Agriculture helpful.…
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- Insurance
AHRQ report from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
Statistical Brief #421: Differentials in the Concentration in the Level of Health Expenditures across Population Subgroups in the U.S., 2010
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- Health Policy
Aligning Payments, Services, and Quality in Primary Care
This report in JAMA describes what the authors said is an optimal payment model for primary care. In May 2021,…
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- Health Policy
All-Time High: 13.6 Million People Signed Up for Health Coverage on the ACA Insurance Marketplaces
On Dec 22, 2021, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that a record 13.6 million were enrolled…
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- Insurance
An analysis of out-of-network claims in large employer health plans
Among Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance, almost one in five inpatient admissions includes a claim from an out-of-network provider. Charts…
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- Insurance
An Analysis of Popular Legal Arguments Against Price Transparency
Along with the Report Card on State Price Transparency Laws, July 2015, the Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR) and the…
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- Infectious Diseases
Antibiotic pipeline
Developing new drugs is time-consuming and expensive. Only one out of five drugs to treat infectious diseases make it past…
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- Infectious Diseases
Antibiotic resistance
For more localized data on antibiotic resistance in your community, check out ResistanceOpen. It is an online platform developed by…
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- Patient Safety
Antibiotic resistance
CDC’s Antibiotic Resistance & Patient Safety Portal: The CDC’s website that contains links to many CDC datasets and explanations of…
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- Infectious Diseases
Antimicrobial resistance
One of the only national estimate of antibiotic use in the U.S. is connected to food animal production. Beginning in…
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- Health IT
Artificial intelligence
Ageism in artificial intelligence for health – World Health Organization policy brief from 2022 about legal, non-legal and technical measures…
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- Insurance
Assessing the 2017 Medicare Advantage Star ratings
For a report in which it analyzed CMS data on Medicare Advantage plans, McKinsey & Company showed that it is…
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- Insurance
Association of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program With Mortality
Among Medicare Beneficiaries Hospitalized for Heart Failure, Acute Myocardial Infarction, and Pneumonia. Researchers reported in JAMA that among Medicare beneficiaries,…
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- Insurance
Behavioral Health Barometer: United States
In December, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the Department of Health and Human Services published…
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- Aging
Brain health
A dataset from the Aging, Dementia and Traumatic Brain injury trial is available from The Allen Institute for Brain Science. The study…
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- Medical Studies
Cancer
Cancer could easily be a beat all its own, and for many reporters it is. If you’re new to reporting…
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- Health Equity
Cancer
Single digits: Black, Hispanic scientists strikingly underrepresented at NCI among senior workforce and grantees Annual Report to the Nation on…
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- Aging
Cancer trends
Cancer Statistics Center: The American Cancer Society has unveiled a database on incidence and death rates for the most common types of…
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- Aging
CDC Provisional Death Count for Coronavirus by Age
Provisional death counts (table 1, screen 2) are based on death certificate data received and coded by the National Center for…
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- Insurance
CDC report: Problems paying medical bills
A report, Problems Paying Medical Bills Among Persons Under Age 65, from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…
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- Aging
Certified Geriatricians and Geriatric Physicians (Now & projected)
NYC Department for the Aging (DFTA) database of Geriatric Mental Health Providers provides Listing of DFTA Geriatric Mental Health Contracts Information and…
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- Medical Studies
Cesarean deliveries (C-sections)
A useful place to start for data about cesarean deliveries is the CDC, which provides annual FastStats on the method…
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- Insurance
Characteristics of the Population With Consumer-Driven and High-Deductible Health Plans, 2005–2013; Labor-Force Participation Rates of the Population Ages 55 and Older, 2013
In a report published in April 2014, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) collects data on who has consumer-driven health…
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- Health Equity
Children and health
2018-2019 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) Child and Family Health Measures: The Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent…
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- Infectious Diseases
Climate change
The American Public Health Association, a Washington, D.C.,-based nonprofit that aims to improve the health of the public and achieve…
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- Health Policy
CMS Chronic Conditions Dashboard
This lets you compile data on prevalence of 15 common chronic conditions – including depression — how much they costs,…
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- Aging
CMS data
CMS Geographic Variation Public Use Files for 2020: an annual update. These files contain demographic, spending, utilization and quality indicators…
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- Health Policy
CMS DataNavigator
While the AHCJ website has data available on Medicare and Medicare, here’s a menu-driven search tool that can help you…
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- Health Policy
CMS Releases County-Level Marketplace Data
CMS has released new information on Qualified Health Plan selections by county for the 37 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform (including…
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- Insurance
Commonwealth Fund report outlines how the health system works for low-income Americans
A report published by The Commonwealth Fund in September 2013 evaluates how well state health care systems are working for…
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- Insurance
Community Catalyst report on prescription drug prices
Community Catalyst highlights four key factors contributing to the high cost of prescription drugs in the United States: Pharmaceutical monopoly…
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- COVID-19
Community data
The National Institutes of Health created the National COVID Cohort Collaborative to collate deidentified electronic health record data on COVID19.…
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- Insurance
Community Health Center Chart Book
The Community Health Center Chartbook highlights data from and research findings on those health centers, including Federally-Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs)…
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- Health Policy
Community Health Data Initiative
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Institute of Medicine launched this initiative to help consumers and…
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- Health Policy
Community health status & Medicare
The Health Indicators Warehouse, was updated this fall. It now includes 174 CMS indicators with data from 2007-10 focusing on…
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- Health Policy
Comparing U.S. health care system with other countries
The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) maintains a database that enables comparisons between the U.S. and other developed countries on…
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- Insurance
Concentration of Health Expenditures and Selected Characteristics of High Spenders, U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population, 2015
In a statistical brief published Dec. 12, 2017, the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality describe the concentration of…
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- Insurance
Consultants explain the factors that will drive up health care costs in 2015
In 2015, health care costs will rise by about 6.8 percent, according to a report from the Health Research Institute…
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- Insurance
Consumer Reports National Research Center: Survey on surprise medical bills
In March 2015, Consumers Reports National Research Center surveyed 2,200 U.S. consumers and found that in the past two years…
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- Aging
County data
Atlas of Rural and Small Town America: County-level data for population change overall and by demographic group, includes 60 socioeconomic…
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- Health Policy
County health rankings
A collaboration between the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this is a rich source…
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- Medical Studies
COVID-19
Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine Data The following are links to the published data and ClinicalTrials.gov records for the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine…
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- Infectious Diseases
COVID-19
SARS-CoV-2 Variant Classifications and Definitions. The CDC has updated its list of coronavirus variants that the agency is watching, including…
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- COVID-19
COVID-19 trackers
CDC’s COVID-19 Wastewater surveillance tracker: The agency recently added this tracking tool to its COVID-19 dashboard. Public health officials are…
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- Health IT
Cybersecurity
ECRI’s Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2022 – List of items the nonprofit patient safety organization feels warrant the…
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- Aging
Data and statistics on older Americans
Cost of falls by state 2018 (CDC data): As the number of Americans 65 and older grows, fall injuries and treatment…
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- Health Policy
Data files from the National Center for Health Statistics
The National Center for Health Statistics offers downloadable public-use data files through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s FTP…
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- Health Equity
Data visualization tools
Rural Assistance Center Maps: The Rural Assistance Center, in conjunction with the University of Missouri’s Center for Applied Research and…
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- Health Equity
Databases, research and statistics
Population Level Analysis and Community Estimates The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded its 500 Cities Project, a 2016 initiative to provide city-…
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- Medical Studies
Deaths from law enforcement
Police-associated deaths and police brutality are becoming increasingly reported as a public health issue, helped by the fact that the…
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- Aging
Demographics
International Database: World Population Estimates and Projections via U.S. Census Bureau — demographic indicators, population pyramids, mapping and source information…
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- Aging
Direct care workers: State-by-state data
Learn how many nursing aides, home health aides, and personal care aides work in each state. Direct care workers are important…
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- Health Equity
Disabilities
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains statistics and analysis on disability and health disparities. This source…
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- Aging
Disability
The Disability and Health Data System (DHDS) has state-level health and demographic data about adults with disabilities broken by type, demographics and other…
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- Medical Studies
Disability statistics
The word “disability” encompasses a wide range of individuals in the U.S. For example, many people may not think of…
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- COVID-19
Disparities
Population Level Analysis and Community Estimates The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded its 500 Cities Project, a 2016 initiative to provide city-…
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- Insurance
Doctors in U.S. and Canada Launch Sweeping Pharmaceutical Reform Proposal
In a plan published May 17, 2018, in the British Medical Journal, doctors in the U.S. and Canada outlined seven…
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- Health Policy
Domestic Reference Pricing and Its Potential Role in Medicare Pharmaceutical Price Negotiations
In 2021, members of Congress considered a proposal to let Medicare negotiate lower drug prices with pharmaceutical makers. One way…
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- Medical Studies
Drug shortages
Drug shortages, especially shortages of cancer drugs, have driven recent news stories. Want to write one of your own? Check…
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- Insurance
EBRI report tracks health insurance coverage from 1995 through March 2012
The Employee Benefit Resource Institute published a report, “Tracking Health Insurance Coverage by Month: Trends in Employment-Based Coverage Among Workers,…
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- Health Policy
Effects of Selected Major Tax Expenditures from 2013 to 2022
Sometimes during debates over health policy you hear the term “tax exclusion.” That’s referring to the tax breaks for health…
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- Health IT
Electronic health records (EHRs)
Health information exchange usage nationally – Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative survey, 2019. Physician burnout and EHRs – How in-basket…
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- Infectious Diseases
Emergency health preparedness
Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit led by Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has…
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- Health Policy
Employee benefits
EBRI (the Employer Benefit Research Institute) puts out data briefs ad summaries, but they often contain links to government databases…
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- Insurance
Employee Benefits Research Institute
The Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI) has published the EBRI Databook on Employee Benefits since 1990. EBRI says the databook…
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- Aging
End-of-life care
The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care publishes extensive data on intensity of spending on medical services at the end of…
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- Insurance
Enhancing the State Health Insurance Markets: State Progress Reports
The National Health Council (NHC) created state-specific progress reports to assess the patient-centeredness of health insurance markets across states. These…
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- Health Policy
Essential health benefits
In 2014, all health plans, in and out of the exchanges, will have to offer “essential benefits,” or a minimal,…
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- Health Policy
Evaluate the quality of hospitals in your area
State-by-state breakdown of how patients rate hospitals, according to the HHS Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Providers and Systems Graphic…
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- Health Policy
Excel tutorial Intro to investigating health data using spreadsheets
This tutorial will give you a jumpstart on using spreadsheets to investigate health data. While it’s important to remember that…
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- Insurance
Explaining Health Care Reform: Risk Adjustment, Reinsurance, and Risk Corridors
In this issue brief, researchers from the Kaiser Family Foundation explain the three provisions included in the Affordable Care Act…
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- Medical Studies
FDA data
OpenFDA is an initiative to make it easier for web developers, researchers, and the public to access large, important public health datasets…
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- Medical Studies
FDA-approved drugs
Sometimes researchers study drugs that are already FDA-approved to see if they may have other uses. If you want to…
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- Aging
Finances
Snapshot of poverty among seniors – supplemental poverty measure: Poverty rates are traditionally measured using a threshold of three times the…
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- Health Policy
Finding patterns and trends in health data: Pivot tables in spreadsheets
Excel pivot tables are a powerful way to organize, interpret and manipulate numerical data. In this tip sheet, reporters will…
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- Medical Studies
Firearm deaths and injuries and mass shootings data
It can be tricky to find reliable stats related to firearms and firearm injuries and deaths, but journalists can compile…
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- Health Equity
Food insecurity
Food insecurity is a growing concern for many people in the United States. Prior to COVID-19, it was estimated that…
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- Infectious Diseases
Food safety
In December 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced that it had updated its food surveillance data page,…
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- Insurance
GAO report: Private Health Insurance: The Range of Base Premiums in the Individual Market by County in January 2013
In September 2014, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported on the range of base health insurance premiums in the individual…
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- Insurance
Geisinger Health System’s ProvenExperience refund program
In November 2015, the Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa., introduced its ProvenExperience program in which the health insurer and…
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- Medical Studies
General statistics
Pew Research Center: Most journalists are aware of Pew Research Center, but they may not be aware of how much…
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- Health Equity
Global
The IPCC Climate Report For data on global health, Duke University maintains an updated site that links to several global…
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- Aging
Global Burden of Disease
Data on global and regional estimates for mortality, disability, disease burden, life expectancy, and risk factors from GBD 2010 downloaded…
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- Aging
Global statistics on aging
WHO Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE)WHO’s SAGE is a longitudinal study collecting data on adults aged 50…
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- Insurance
Guroo
The Health Care Cost Institute established this health care price comparison website from health insurers’ claims data. The goal of…
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- Health Policy
Guroo.com
This is a new free and pretty user friendly source of price information based on an extensive (billions) set of insurance claims…
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- Insurance
HCI3 issue brief on physician quality transparency
A report, “State Report Card on Transparency of Physician Quality Information,” from the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3) sheds…
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- Health Policy
Health care costs
We often try to provide databases that you can download. While this doesn’t quite fall into that category, The Wall…
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- Health Policy
Health care expenditures and utilization
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality offers data about medical expenditures, health care costs and utilization, broken down by…
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- Insurance
Health Care Prices and Spending Accelerating
In a report published in April 2018, Altarum says spending on health care is rising due to price growth and…
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- Insurance
Health Care Pricing Project
Data from the Health Care Pricing Project show variations in hospital inpatient prices, and how market power affects what hospitals…
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- Patient Safety
Health care-associated infections
AHRQ’s Healthcare-Associated Infections Program: A webpage with overview of efforts to train hospital staff on how to better prevent infections.…
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- Insurance
Health Care’s 1%: The Extreme Concentration of U.S. Health Spending
In a report in November 2014, the National Institute for Health Care Management showed in a series of charts how…
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- Insurance
Health Centers and Medicaid Report
The National Association of Community Health Centers says health centers care for more than 1 in 6 Medicaid beneficiaries nationally.
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- Insurance
Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) from January to June 2018
In a report from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, researchers from the NHIS reported that in the first…
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