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 US ResearchIHME compiles available health data from all over the United States – both nationally and locally – and creates new methods to evaluate health trends. Using these data, the Institute constructs estimates of mortality, life expectancy, risk factors, and disease prevalence using new strategies and tools to analyze the data and project future trends. IHME researchers have pioneered a method of using small area estimates to generate validated health statistics for more than 3,000 counties. Using this approach, they have published groundbreaking studies, including one showing how the US can be divided into "Eight Americas", based on geography, race, and other factors that lead to disparities in health quality. Other innovative research, "The Preventable Causes of Death in the United States", illustrated the large number of deaths in the US attributable to preventable risk factors such as smoking, unhealthy eating, and high blood pressure. That paper was voted the best open-access medical journal article of the past five years in a competition sponsored by PLoS Medicine. IHME’s US research involves collaborators throughout the country, including researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, and Public Health – Seattle & King County. In September 2009, IHME was awarded two federal grants from branches of the National Institutes of Health to support its work. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute is funding the design of a population-based surveillance system that integrates multiple data sources to monitor disparities in chronic diseases at the local level. The National Institute on Aging is supporting a project to track disparities in the delivery of health services by estimating the intervention coverage and effective coverage of key health interventions for all 39 counties in the state of Washington and providing a model for projects in other states. Much of IHME's US research builds on the groundbreaking efforts, listed below, of IHME researchers in their work with the Institute or just prior to joining IHME.  Reversal of FortunesMortality inequality rose in the 1980s and 1990s, and women, in particular, were hit hard by obesity, smoking, and high blood pressure.  Preventable Causes of Death in the USEat your vegetables. It could save 58,000 lives. Eating more fish, exercising and cutting back on salt could save lives, too. And what about exercise? (449k pdf*)  Eight AmericasAsian women live 20 years longer than black men – just one example of how the health of Americans is divided by race, geography, and economics. (739k pdf*)
For more information, please contact: us@healthmetricsandevaluation.org *Software capable of displaying a PDF is required for viewing or printing this document. You may download a free copy of Adobe Reader from the Adobe website at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. |
