The Quality Counts data is typically available only to paid subscribers of Education Week, but is currently available to anyone through January 30 in Education Week's annual open house. State report cards are organized by five categories: Chance for success; K-12 Achievement; Standards, Assessments and Accountability; Transitions and Alignment; and the Teaching Profession. An interesting tool is the ability to "weight" each category with the issues that are most important to you, and then see if your state's scores remain the same.

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The Family Caregiver Alliance, based in California but with a national focus of developing high-quality programs and policies in every state for families who care for loved ones at home, has recently published a list of programs in each state that support caregivers. Minnesota's profile includes the Elderly Waiver and Alternative Care programs that are part of the statewide waiver review initiative we have been working on for the previous two years. The State of the States in Family Caregiver Support: A 50-State Study includes a series of data tables comparing how state programs responded to key survey questions, including: program eligibility criteria, caregiver assessments, caregiver support services, respite care and caregiver training.

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The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) manage and monitor eligibility for the federally funded Medicaid and Medicare programs. We recently found their data on Medicaid and Medicare enrollment, use and payments very valuable in preparing a proposal to study senior's use of in-home vs. residential services. Most data is current through 2004.

Medicaid Statistical Information System (MSIS data) is available in .pdf summary form or you can download Excel files directly by clicking on the zip versions. There are state-by-state comparisions of eligibility, beneficiaries, vendor payments and managed care. Because each table is presented in raw numbers, researchers may want to blend the Excel files with other sources of data (such as census data) to determine use levels within given communities.

Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) allows you to actually search and summarize data yourself (although limited choice options are available). It is based on the same set of data as MSIS but is compiled annually rather than quarterly so lags a couple of years behind. There is generally more detail; for example, I ran a list of the U.S. top 10 drug groups ranked by total reimbursement (anti-psychotics are ranked highest in almost every state including Minnesota).

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The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) manage and monitor eligibility for the federally funded Medicaid and Medicare programs. We recently found their data on Medicaid and Medicare enrollment, use and payments very valuable in preparing a proposal to study senior's use of in-home vs. residential services. Most data is current through 2004.

Medicaid Statistical Information System (MSIS data) is available in .pdf summary form or you can download Excel files directly by clicking on the zip versions. There are state-by-state comparisions of eligibility, beneficiaries, vendor payments and managed care. Because each table is presented in raw numbers, researchers may want to blend the Excel files with other sources of data (such as census data) to determine use levels within given communities.

Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) allows you to actually search and summarize data yourself (although limited choice options are available). It is based on the same set of data as MSIS but is compiled annually rather than quarterly so lags a couple of years behind. There is generally more detail; for example, I ran a list of the U.S. top 10 drug groups ranked by total reimbursement (anti-psychotics are ranked highest in almost every state including Minnesota).

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SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration -- a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services -- has developed National Outcomes Measures for all of its grantees. They are laid out in a clear grid by domain, similar to what a logic model might look like if you tried to model all prevention and treatment programs in one document.

States and other grantees report on their success in these outcomes. The outcomes were developed primarily from SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). This annual survey collects data from members of U.S. households aged 12 or older. Some interesting national statistics show that that among persons aged 12 to 17 (2004-05):
* Seventeen percent reported using alcohol during the past 30 days; however, 78 percent perceived a great risk of harm from having five or more drinks of an alcoholic beverage once or twice a week.
* Seven percent reported using marijuana in the past 30 days; however, 83 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds perceived moderate or great risk of harm from smoking marijuana once a month.
* The average age of first use among 12- to 17-year-olds who reported using marijuana or alcohol was 13.6 and 13.1, respectively.
* Twenty-five percent of persons aged 15 to 17 who were employed would be more likely to work for an employer who randomly tests for drugs and alcohol.

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I love finding sources of data that I can draw on later when doing research or helping a client understand their communities. As I find interesting sources of data, I'll post them under this new heading.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress is a national test given to a nationally selected sample of students periodically (recent tests were given in 2003, 2005 and 2007). Its goals are to compare student achievement in states and other jurisdictions and to track changes in achievement of fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-graders over time in mathematics, reading, writing, science and other subjects.

In Minnesota, the percentages of students showing proficiency or advanced achievement in math have steadily increased in the last 15 years, while those in reading have stayed more steady.

Raw data you can use to perform your own analysis can be found here, with one data set dating back to 1970.

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