The U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)
supports healthy women building healthy communities. HRSA
is charged with ensuring access to quality health care through
a network of community-based health centers, maternal and
child health programs, and community HIV/AIDS programs through
the States and Territories. In addition, HRSA’s mission
includes supporting individuals pursuing careers in medicine,
nursing, and many other health disciplines. HRSA fulfills
these responsibilities by collecting and analyzing timely,
topical information that identifies health priorities and
trends that can be addressed through program interventions
and capacity building.
HRSA is pleased to present Women’s
Health USA 2007, the sixth edition of the Women’s
Health USA data book. To reflect the everchanging,
increasingly diverse population and its characteristics,
Women’s Health USA selectively highlights emerging
issues and trends in women’s health. Data and information
on autoimmune diseases, gynecological and reproductive disorders,
and digestive disorders are a few of the new topics included
in this edition. Where possible, every effort has been made
to highlight racial and ethnic, sex/gender, and socioeconomic
disparities. In some instances, it was not possible to provide
data for all races due to the size of the sample population.
A cell size of fewer than 20 was deemed too small to produce
reliable results.
The data book was developed by HRSA to
provide readers with an easy-to-use collection of current
and historical data on some of the most pressing health
challenges facing women, their families, and their communities.
Women’s Health USA 2007 is intended to be a concise
reference for policymakers and program managers at the Federal,
State, and local levels to identify and clarify issues affecting
the health of women. In these pages, readers will find a
profile of women’s health from a variety of data sources.
The data book brings together the latest available information
from various agencies within the Federal government, including
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department
of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Labor, and U.S. Department
of Justice. Non-Federal data sources were used when no Federal
source was available. Every attempt has been made to use
data collected in the past 5 years. It is important to note
that the incidence data included is generally not age-adjusted
to the 2000 population standard of the United States. This
affects the comparability of data from year to year, and
the interpretation of differences across various groups,
especially those of different races and ethnicities. Without
age adjustment, it is difficult to know how much of the
difference in incidence rates between groups can be attributed
to differences in the groups’ age distributions. Also, presentation
of racial and ethnic data may appear differently on some
pages as a result of the design and limitations of the original
data source.
In an effort to produce a timely document,
some of the topics covered in Women’s Health USA 2006
were not included in this year’s edition because new data
were not available. For coverage of these issues, please
refer to Women’s
Health USA 2006. The National
Women’s Health Information Center also has updated and
detailed women’s and minority health data and maps through
Quick
Health Data Online. Data are available at the State
and county levels, by age, race and ethnicity, and sex/gender.
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