Research Agendas for Centers, Institute, and Offices
CoCHIS: NCHS Research Agenda
NCHS, as the nation's principal health statistics agency, has multiple objectives, including reporting of aggregate statistics, creation of databases that can serve as resources for research on health and health policy issues, and independent analysis of these databases. The agenda for NCHS programs is set by the need to serve these multiple purposes. Identifying ways to improve the underlying science base for health statistics, including data collection and analytic methods, is the area most germane to NCHS' overall effort to develop a research agenda. The research agenda will provide a framework for developing methodological research projects that will support NCHS efforts (as well as efforts of other partners) to address high priority data needs.
Through a variety of meetings and workshops with collaborators both within and outside of the Federal government, the following major methodological issues were identified. These form the core of the NCHS Research Agenda:
- Expanding the use of longitudinal designs
for the collection of health and health care
utilization information and developing models
of transitions between health states from the
resulting information;
- Expanding linkages among data systems,
including greater integration of systems that
collect data as well as greater linkages of
data for analytic purposes;
- Expanding information on the health care
delivery system, including more extensive use
of administrative data bases and linking
administrative and population-based data
systems, including registries;
- Improving timeliness, availability, and
quality of data;
- Developing summary measures of health and
health indices;
- Developing improved methods for obtaining
information on sub-populations defined by
geography, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic
status;
- Developing more sophisticated disclosure review methods and creating ways to provide access to data that cannot be released publicly due to confidentiality concerns.
Page last modified: October 6, 2006
Content source: Office of the Chief Science Officer (OCSO)
