Collecting, Analyzing And Presenting Data

Planning Tools

Action Checklist

  1. Collect and analyze your county health data
  2. Collect and analyze your Community Data
  3. Put it together, and interpret your available data
  4. Summarize and present your county health profile

  1. Collect and analyze secondary county health data:


    Strengths and weaknesses in the health of the community emerge with careful study of data. Assessment Team members may need data utilization and interpretation training and resources. A good place to start is by reviewing data in Vital Statistics of New York, the County Health Indicator Profile or the New York State Community Health Data Set. Additional sources of data are listed under Data resources.

    To complete the worksheet, the team must analyze additional quantitative and qualitative data to provide a complete picture of the county's health. For example, an in your county may have data from a locally conducted survey or program evaluation. It would be important to gather valuable information from this survey. Be sure to involve the entire team and selected stakeholders in the data collection and analysis process.

  2. Collect and analyze your Community Data.


    After reviewing the secondary data, your team may decide that it is vital to collect first-hand or primary data. Based on the needs of your community, resources available, and time, your team can decide how they would like to collect this information. A compilation of primary data collection tools and information is available in the Data resources section.

  3. Put it together.


    After the Assessment Team completes this step, members should have a basic understanding of your community's major health behaviors' and status problems and strengths. Members will also be able to relate how the health status and behavior findings relate to community perceptions.

  4. Summarize and present.


    The "Tips for Presenting Data" sheet an outline for how to create a concise presentation. You may have involved selected members among your stakeholders in the data analysis and interpretation process, and may want to involve majority of the stakeholders in the next step of deciding on the focus areas. You may need to present the data in a way that is easy to understand. Make copies of these worksheets for the group involved in prioritizing your health focus/priority areas. In addition, you may want to selectively illustrate the data through charts, tables and photographs.