Utah. Office of Public Health Data; Utah. Bureau of Surveillance and Analysis;
Subject.MeSH
Population Characteristics; Utah; Risk Factors; Health Policy; Health Status; Health Surveys; Outcome Assessment (Health Care); Ethnic Groups; Disease; Epidemiology; Health Status Indicators; Medicine; Statistics; Public Health
Subject.LCSH
Population; Medical policy; Health status indicators; Health surveys; Outcome assessment (Medical care); Ethnic groups; Diseases; Epidemiology; Medicine; Statistics; Public health;
Description
An understanding of the health status of a population is necessary to plan, implement, describe, and
evaluate public health programs that control and prevent adverse health events. A 1988 Institute of Medicine
committee,1 in a report entitled, The Future of Public Health recommended that...
“...every public health agency regularly and systematically collect, assemble, analyze, and make
available information on the health of the community, including statistics on health status,
community health needs, and epidemiologic and other studies of health problems.”
Utah’s population is becoming increasingly diverse and many voices have expressed the need for health
data on racial and ethnic populations in Utah. In addition, the United States has made elimination of health
disparities one of its two overriding goals for the year 2010.2 If we are to eliminate disparities, we must first
identify and understand them. This report is an attempt to provide health status data on Utah’s racial and ethnic
populations.
