How to Use
The Hawai‘i Health Data Warehouse is built on an interactive query system. This system allows users to view pre-made health indicator reports or to build their own custom reports by querying public health datasets directly. The public health datasets on Hawai‘i-IBIS are managed and provided by the Hawai‘i State Department of Health, through the Hawai‘i Health Data Warehouse.
There are three ways to access data in the system in order of configurability: view a community report, explore a health topic and/or build a custom report.
View a Community Report
Community Reports generate a snapshot view of how a community is doing compared to the state for a group of health indicators. It is a great place to start if you want to know more about the health of a defined population.
To run a Community Report:
- Select a community of interest
- Select a group of health indicators
- Submit the query
- Click here to see a more detailed video on how to use Community Reports
Explore a Health Topic
If you know your area of interest, but aren’t sure what kind of data is available, then Health Topics is for you. This feature allows you to search our data collections by a variety of topic areas such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, nutrition, oral health and more.
Once you select a topic you will find background information, additional resources, and links to indicator reports in HHDW and dashboards in HawaiiHealthMatters.org.
There are also links for you to create your own custom report in HHDW.
Click here to see a more detailed video on how to use Health Topics
Build Your Own Report
If you know the data you want to work with and want to run your own analysis then Build Your Own Report is the place for you.
To build your own report,
- Click on the Build Your Own Report box at the top of the Home page or select your data source from the drop-down menu
- On the Health Indicator Selection page, select the category you are interested in and click on the indicator you want
- A default report will appear for that indicator, providing the most recent 3 years of available data at the state level
- Then you can modify the report at this point, to choose filters, other dimensions and how you want to display the data
- Click here to see a more detailed video on how to Build Your Own Report
How to Cite
The information published on this website is public information. Use and reproduction of this information is highly encouraged and may be done without permission. Suggested citation information can be found on each report and should be used whenever information from this website is used, reproduced, or published.
The general citation format is:
Hawaiʻi State Department of Health, Hawaiʻi Health Data Warehouse, [Dataset queried]. [Chart Title, appropriate years(s)]. Published [update date]. Accessed [query date]. [URL]
As an Example:
Hawaiʻi State Department of Health, Hawaiʻi Health Data Warehouse, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Cigarettes – current smoker, age-adjusted by county, 2017-2019. Published September 30, 2020. Accessed March 31, 2022. https://www.hhdw.org
How to Read a Chart
When you build a report in HHDW, you will see a chart. Below is a typical chart from an actual indicator report. There are different kinds of charts, such as pie charts, line charts, and bar charts, which you can select on the report page. The chart displayed here is a line chart.
Query Criteria: This box helps you keep track of the options you’ve selected in building the report. It shows that the report is based on adults who are overweight or obese (BMI greater than 25.0) for the years 2015-2019 by year and sex.
The Title. The second thing you want to look at is the title. This will tell you what the chart is about, as well as the population measured. The chart above is about adults who are overweight or obese by sex in Hawaiʻi. The time period, seen on the chart and in the year filter, is from 2015 through 2019.
The Y-Axis. Next, look at the vertical or Y-axis. Charts are displayed in 2 dimensions. These are also called axes, with a vertical, up and down, or “Y” axis and a horizontal, left-to-right, or “X” axis. The Y-axis tells the reader about the data in the chart. Our chart is showing the percent of adults who are overweight or obese.
Looking closer at the Y-axis, you will see numbers (0, 20, 40, 60, etc.) going up the side. These numbers tell the reader about the data values. For instance, the left-most dot on the top (blue) line has been plotted between 60% and 70%. If you mouse over the data point, the exact value will be shown.
The X-Axis. The X-axis is the horizontal axis. The numbers along the X-axis on our chart are years, 2015-2019. So this chart shows the trend for overweight or obesity rates for the time period from 2015 to 2019.
It is also important to note that the X-axis intercepts (crosses) the Y-axis at the value “0.” This is not the case with all charts, but it will be true for all HHDW charts.
The Legend. There are two lines on the chart. The legend tells us that the blue line represents adult males while the yellow line represents adult females. So right away, we can see that adult males in Hawaiʻi are more likely to be overweight or obese.
Confidence Intervals. The confidence intervals are represented on the chart by the small vertical lines that run through each data point. The confidence interval may be thought of as the range of probable true values for a statistic. In this case, the confidence intervals for males and females do not overlap. This means men in Hawaiʻi are statistically significantly more likely to be overweight or obese than women in Hawaiʻi.
Data Notes. You will also want to read the chart footnotes before you make a final interpretation of the data. It will give you information about any data that has been suppressed in the chart due to small sample size or unstable estimates.
Ready to give it a try?
If you’ve learned enough and are ready to build your own report, click the button below. Don’t let this process scare you. You can’t mess anything up.
If you can build a basic report but want to do more, stretch out of your comfort zone and try something harder! The training section will teach you how to make the most out of your custom report building.