Electronic Data Sets and Documentation

The goal of the Safety Net Monitoring initiative is to help state and local policymakers, planners, and analysts monitor the status of their safety nets and the populations they serve. Strategies include providing baseline data and a set of tools that enable monitoring of the capacity and performance of local safety nets.

The documentation and data here accompany two books on monitoring the health care safety net:

• Book 1. Data for Metropolitan Areas presents data on metropolitan areas from 30 States and the District of Columbia, including 354 counties and 171 cities in 90 metropolitan areas and 94 county residuals.
• Book 2. Data for States and Counties shows data from all 1,818 counties in these States, including both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties.

Other than the Microsoft® Excel spreadsheets, the electronic data files that can be downloaded below combine the data in these two data books.

Documentation Files

Documentation Contents of Files and Data Description
          Word® file (62 KB).
          Text (16 KB).

Codebook Record Layout and Variable Information
          Word® file (241 KB)
          Text (130 KB).

Safety Net Measures, Their Definitions, and Data Sources (PDF file, 118 KB; PDF Help).

Data Files

To download, right click on links and select "Save Target As" (Internet Explorer) or "Save Link As" (Netscape®, Firefox™).

Book 1. Data for Metropolitan Areas (Microsoft® Excel file, 4 MB).
Book 2. Data for States and Counties (Microsoft® Excel file, 10 MB).

Data Files and Programming Statements for Statistical Software:

          Combined File With Data From Both Books
          ASCII file (Zipped, 770 KB).

          Information for SAS® Users
          ASCII file (41 KB).

Free Viewers

Files can be accessed with free viewers if proprietary software is not available.

• PDF files require the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader, which can be downloaded free at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
• Microsoft® Word® files can be viewed with the Word® Viewer, which can be downloaded free at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en.
• Microsoft® Excel® files can be viewed with the Excel Viewer, which can be downloaded free at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c8378bf4-996c-4569-b547-75edbd03aaf0&DisplayLang=en.

Questions or feedback concerning the data may be directed to info@ahrq.gov.

Current as of September 2003

Internet Citation:

Electronic Data Sets and Documentation. Health Care Safety Net Initiative. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. September 2003. http://www.ahrq.gov/data/safetynet/document.htm

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