How to Use OASIS To Access Statistics About Suicide and Suicide Attempts
GEORGIA SUICIDE PREVENTION TOOLKIT
SKILL-BUILDER created by Sally vander Straeten
OASIS is a suite of interactive tools used to access the Georgia Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health's standardized health data repository. OASIS and the Repository are designed, built and maintained by the Office of Health Information and Policy (OHIP). The Mapping Tool, designed by OHIP, is developed and maintained by the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government, ITOS Division. The website may be found at http://oasis.state.ga.us You can access a great deal of data about suicide (mortality) and suicide attempts (morbidity) on this website.
Indicators in each tool are selectable by a variety of population, disease, and survey characteristics. Where applicable, you can choose data by age groups, race, ethnicity, sex (person), census tract, county, health district, legislative district, state (place), and year (time). All tables and maps pertain to place of residence, not occurrence. For instance, a person who lived in Macon but died by suicide in Atlanta would be recorded in the statistics of Bibb County.
OASIS plays an integral role in program planning, which includes determining target population areas, formulating financial plans, monitoring program effectiveness, program evaluation and reporting program outcomes. Use OASIS cutting-edge data querying tools to:
· Develop profiles and report cards for counties or districts,
· Assess community health needs, prioritize health problems, and evaluate programs,
· Assemble data for grant writing, health analysis, special projects or state legislative reporting,
· Examine data by census tract to identify high risk populations, and allocate resources, or
· Identify areas that contribute a disproportionate share of a health issue,
· Target problem areas to analyze specific health problems and outcomes,
· Create a basis for health communications or health advocacy,
· Apply GIS to analyze varied environmental risks focused on disease process, economic status and other environmental variables that influence health outcomes, and
· Map several geographic areas to compare varied health outcomes.
Suicide death data on OASIS is from death certificate data. Suicide attempt date is from hospital intake data.
OASIS has already played a vital role in developing profiles for public health districts that are developing suicide prevention coalitions.
USING OASIS TO ACCESS DATA ON COMPLETED AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDES
1. Beginning on the OASIS Home Page http://oasis.state.ga.us go to OASIS Web Query Tool, the first box on the left hand side of the screen and click on Mortality/Morbidity.
2. You will now be on the site of the OASIS MORTALITY/MORBIDITY WEB QUERY TOOL. In this user-friendly tool, you choose which statistics to display in your data tables. All rates are per 100,000 population. Multiple selections can be made for Year, State/Counties, Race, and Age by holding down the Control or Shift keys and clicking on each selection.
3. Go to the Measures box in the upper left of the page, click on the arrow, and click on Mortality Measures in the drop down box. Another drop box will appear. Click on Deaths and Death Rate or Deaths and Age-Adjusted Death Rate (preferable).
4. Go to the box beneath titled Age and click on the arrow to bring down the drop box. Click on Detailed Age Groups. This gives you a wider selection of age groups from which to choose. You can click on one age group or hold down the Control or Shift keys to make multiple selections.
5. Move to the right to the Time box. The years from 1994 to the present appear on the screen. Click on the year or the combination of years you want. Statisticians often use three year clusters to stabilize the data in suicide prevention.
6. Move to the right to the Geography box. In the drop down box click on Public Health Districts. The tables that are made with this choice will also contain statistics about each county in the public health district. If you choose Georgia you will get all suicide death statistics with no detail. Click on the public health district(s) for which you wish data.
7. Move down to the Cause box and click on the arrow to bring down the drop box. Click on External Causes (the last entry). Another box will appear. Scroll down to Suicide and highlight and click on Suicide.
8. Move to the left to the Race, Ethnicity, and Sex boxes and make your choices.
9. Move to the right and click on the red GET DATA! Button. The default Display Results gives you a table of the data you have requested. The Download Results button gives you the data in file format. Download as Text File option will create a tab-delimited ASCII text file which can be imported into any spreadsheet, word processing, database or analysis software (Excel, Lotus123, Word, SPSS, etc).
To get data on suicide attempts follow steps 1-2. In step 3 go to the Measures box and click on Morbidity in the drop down box and then highlight and click on Morbidity and Morbidity Rate. Follow steps 4-9 in the directions above.
SUGGESTED CITATION
Online Analytical Statistical Information System (OASIS) Georgia Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health, Office of Health Information and Policy. <Date data accessed> http://oasis.state.ga.us/