Health indicators are summary measures that are designed to describe particular aspects of a population's health or health system performance.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that comprehensive key indicator systems had the following positive effects:

• Enhanced collaboration to address public issues.
• Provided tools to encourage progress.
• Informed decision making and improved research.
• Increased public knowledge about key issues.

NJSHAD Indicator Reports are brief online reports that contain data, graphs, and contextual information for a specific public health issue, such as why it's important, what the current status is, and what is being done to improve it. Each Indicator Report has a graph (or several graphs) to give a picture of the data. Text is also provided to answer the most commonly asked questions about the specific topic addressed. More info...

After looking at the Indicator Report for a specific measure, if more detailed data are needed, the Custom Query System is available, or the program office may be contacted directly using the information available in the footer at the bottom of the Indicator Report page.

Chart Progress

• Track and evaluate progress toward goals
• Compare trends across time to demonstrate improvement or decline in health status
• Get information to use for program development
• Enhance our ability to do public health assessment

Decision-Making and Focus

• Provide information that will be useful for decision-making
• Guide policy decisions, priorities, and strategic plans
• Compare measures across population subgroups to identify target groups for interventions
• Allocate resources effectively

Understand Data and Provide Education

• Educate the public on what public health is
• Provide public health context to better understand the meaning of public health data
• Ensure adequate understanding of public health data commonly used in decision-making
• Provide focus to data analysis and support functions
• Streamline data collection and reporting capacity
• Focus measurement and reporting on measures that are high-priority
• Standardize and promote familiarity with definitions of priority measures
• Maintain data and information in a central location for easy access for use in producing reports, grant applications, and presentations
• Provide an integrated view of public health services to our customers

• Each report is on a specific health topic.


• These reports show the status of a public health issue through the use of trend and bar graphs, data tables, and explanatory text.


• All NJSHAD Indicator Reports follow the same format and consist of
• a Default View covering the main point of the health topic and
• a link to a Full Report View (on the left navigation menu) that provides much more information such as
• how New Jersey compares to the U.S.,
• health disparity issues,
• and services available to the public.


• The Default View consists primarily of a graph and a data table. Data Notes, Source(s), Other Views (if any), Definitions, Targets, Current Outlook, and Resources are listed below the data table.

Below are descriptions of each of the pages available from the left navigation buttons.

Important Facts

The Important Facts page shows, at a minimum, the following sections:

• Definition
• Numerator
• Denominator
• Why Is This Important?

Other available sections include:

• Data Interpretation Issues
• Healthy People Objectives
• Healthy New Jersey Objectives
• How Are We Doing?
• How Does New Jersey Compare With the U.S.?
• What Is Being Done?
• Other Program Information

Data Views

The Data Views button has a drop-down list of all the views available for this indicator. The views are also listed on the main page under "Other Views."

Related Indicators

The Related Indicators button has a drop-down list of up to four Related Indicator pages:

• Relevant Population Characteristics
• Health Care System Factors
• Risk Factors
• Health Status Outcomes

These pages allow users to see how the current indicator might be related to other indicators.

Available Services

If there are services available to the public in regard to this indicator they are listed on the Available Services page.

Other Resources & Links

The Other Resources & Links page lists other places where more information may be found for this indicator.

Full Report

The Full Report lists all the information available for this indicator on one page. It includes everything from the above pages as well as all graphical views and their data tables.