Introduction

The Arizona Health Matters website is intended to be a place where community members and policy makers can learn about the overall health of Arizona residents. It is a website dedicated to providing state and local health data, promising practices, as well as related news and reports.

Advertising

No advertising will be permitted unless the Editorial Board approves it.

Editorial Board

The Editorial Board and the Arizona Health Matters website do not endorse or advocate any political initiatives or political figures.

Community Indicator Data

Indicators are presented in the nine topic areas to provide a measure of how our communities are doing. For each indicator, the actual value is shown as well as information about how we are doing compared to other geographic areas (the red-yellow-green gauge) or how we are changing over time (green or red up and down arrows) or how we compare to a national or state average (blue/white or tri-color gradation gauge) to give some context to the information. It is important to remember that while we may be doing better on some indicators than other parts of the country or compared to a state or national average value that does not mean that we should not be working on improving all indicators. Indicators are described and links given to the source of the data and what the values mean. The primary aims of the indicator system are to inform and facilitate positive change. To inform, we must provide accurate, reliable, and timely data at a geographically-meaningful level. We accomplish this by selecting sources that meet the following criteria:

•     Validated methodology for data collection and analysis
•     Regular, scheduled publication of findings
•     Focus on data values for small geographic areas, such as counties and postal codes that are available for all county-level locations in the U.S or locally through our community partners.

Methods

Through the Healthy Communities indicator system, community members have easy access to critical information about the community. The status of the community can be displayed in several ways that are easy to understand.

Links to government sites, academic centers, and some community-based organizations and foundations will be permitted only if the other site includes health-related information and data. Links will not be provided to advocacy organizations and organizations that offer or support products or services that are detrimental to health, such as tobacco products.