North Carolina OMH Improves Availability of Health Data 

By Houkje Ross


Closing the Gap, Supporting State Offices of Minority Health • September/October 2000


North Carolina’s Office of Minority Health improved its abil- in minority children. Sixty-four percent of those deaths were in inity to distribute health data and statistics to its partners, fants under one year old. thanks to funding from the federal Office of Minority The goal, said Pullen-Smith, was to give its partners “informaHealth’s State Partnership Initiative. Now, important data on racial tion, resources, the ability to access those resources, and an underand ethnic groups in the state are more easily distributed to local standing of how they can influence policy at the local level.” 

health departments, community-based organizations, the state de- Pullen-Smith said she worked closely with North Carolina’s Center 

partment of health and human services, colleges and universities, and for Health Statistics, along with her office research associate, her assisadvocacy groups. tant director, and a project consultant to collect minority health data 

A critical part of this strategy was setting up a database of partner and produce new publications. 

addresses and other contact information that could be easily used for Through the state partnership initiative, the office developed 

sending out reports and other notification of state health data. and updated African American, American Indian, and Hispanic/Latino 

“Facts speak for themselves,” said Barbara Pullen-Smith, director fact sheets, the Latina Reproductive Health Report, and the African 

of the North Carolina OMH. “And when our partners have statistical American Health Assessment. 

information, they are better able to pinpoint the types of programs It’s not only distributing the data that’s important, Pullen-Smith 

they need and justify them.” added. “A big part of our job is to act as interpreters of data related to 

Pullen-Smith cites the fact that North Carolina has one of the minority health,” she said. “It has to be understandable. It’s one thing 

highest infant mortality rates in the nation as an example of critical for a researcher at Duke to be able to look at numbers and know what 

health data that should be considered in state health activities. Data they mean, but I want my aunt to be able to understand it too.” 

indicate that American Indian mothers may have a high incidence of For more information, contact Barbara Pullen-Smith, 919-715­

risk factors associated with infant mortality. And while 31 percent of 0992.

the state’s children are minorities, 44 percent of child deaths occurred 

How to Establish a Database 

The development of North Carolina’s Office of Minority Health’s (NC- OMH) database involved three phases: planning and designing, 

database implementation, and data entry and report development. Here’s a general idea of how NC-OMH approached the project. 

1.	 Planning and Designing: In the first 2. Database Implementation: This is the churches, minority radio stations and 

phase OMH staff met with the project technical phase, which involves trans- newspapers, legislators, communityconsultant in a series of meetings to lating the information gathered by the based organizations, ministers, interpretclearly layout and define the purpose project consultant into a database for- ers, and conference attendees. The dataand scope of the database. Discussion mat. The project consultant developed base also includes a complete listing of 

at this stage surrounded the types of a flow chart of the database, which indi- NC-OMH publications. Pullen-Smith 

data that would be stored in the data- cated the types of tables and reports suggests developing a long-term plan for 

base, who would be the main users of available and how they could be linked. updating and maintaining the database 

the data, how the database would en- NC-OMH used in-house staff for sup- and publications. Other suggestions inhance the work of the office in meeting port and guidance. Staff members talked clude documenting the process for dethe needs of minorities in the state, and with the consultant about what they veloping and implementing the project 

what demands the database would cre- would like the database to be able to do and providing training to staff for using 

ate for the Office in terms of data entry, and developed a timeline for the project. the database.

maintenance, and upgrades. The project 

consultant also met with a representa- 3. Data Entry and Report Development: 

tive from the North Carolina State Cen- NC-OMH hired a data entry person to 

ter for Health Statistics. This enter addresses of its partners. The data-


person provided technical as- base holds more than 5,500 names and


sistance in the planning phase. addresses of colleges, individuals,


Office of Minority Health Resource Center	 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services