1. PUBH 6341. Sources of Epidemiology Exercise. 2016 Name: ______________________
Surveillance Data Discovery Exercise
Public health surveillance includes regular and ongoing systematic data collection,
analysis, interpretation, and timely dissemination. Surveillance data measure the
occurrence and distributions of hazards, population characteristics, behaviors, and
health, and can be used to assess intervention needs as well as evaluate their effects.
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Environmental Public Health Tracking
program (MN Tracking) conducts environmental health surveillance across the state, with
a key objective of tracking temporal and spatial trends in the environment and health
outcomes to identify populations at-risk and inform public health action. MN Tracking was
initiated in 2007 when state legislation mandated environmental health and surveillance
and biomonitoring studies. Since then, MDH has joined with 24 state and local health
departments in the CDC Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, working to fill
data gaps in long-term environmental health surveillance data.
The MN Public Health Data Access Portal (MN Data portal) is maintained by MDH MN
Tracking to make surveillance data publicly-available, integrating data to better equip
Minnesota’s communities, policymakers, researchers, and public health professionals to
explore relationships between environmental exposures and health effects. The MN Data
Portal currently provides information on 23 environmental and population health topics,
along with a number of tools to aid users in viewing, understanding, and disseminating
information, including hover-over information, interactive maps, data queries, custom
downloads, and county profiles.
Hover-over information allows users to gather more information, learn definitions, and see
data values on a specific topic by hovering their mouse pointer over a word or image. A
number of topics have data that is displayed on an interactive map, which allows users to
specify the data and information on the map, sort data in tables, and compare maps side
by side for a topic. Data queries allow users to generate custom data tables based on
their specifications for certain topics. County profiles enable users to view a profile of
health and environment data for any Minnesota county.
Minnesota Public Health Data Access Portal

2. PUBH 6341. Sources of Epidemiology Exercise. 2016 Name: ______________________
Goals:
 Learn about the Poverty & Income, Cancer, and Childhood Blood Lead
indicators available on the MN Data portal.
 Use tools such as hover-over information, interactive maps, data queries,
and county profiles to access and understand data.
Public health surveillance background (not necessary for the exercise):
 CDC’s Vision for Public Health Surveillance in the 21st Century. MMWR
Supp. Vol 61. (2012) Available:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/other/su6103.pdf
 Public Health Surveillance: A Tool for Targeting and Monitoring
Interventions, in: Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd
Ed. (2006). Available: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11770/
o Good reference for surveillance principles, tools, methods, and
applications.
Use the MN Data Access Portal to answer the following questions.
I. You would like to know more about poverty and income in Minnesota:
1. Click on the “Poverty and Income >“View Charts” option and answer the
following (scroll down as needed)
What percentage of children under the age of 5 were living in poverty in
2011?
18%
Has this estimate increased, decreased, or remained stable since 2002?
Increased
2. Use the “Explore data” option to answer the following question about “People
in poverty” by county.
Which county had the highest percentage of people of all ages at 100%
poverty from 2010-2014?
Mahnomen
GO back to the main page of the website by clicking the home icon

3. PUBH 6341. Sources of Epidemiology Exercise. 2016 Name: ______________________
II. You are interested in cases of cancer occurring throughout the state of
Minnesota:
3. Click on “Cancer>View Charts>Melanoma.”
Is the rate of melanoma increasing, decreasing, or remaining stable for
females and males?
Increasing
What risk factor may be partly responsible for the change over time?
Increased exposure to UV light through use of sun-tanning beds.
4. Click on “Explore Data>Breast cancer (female).” Then select the table icon
.
For 2009 - 2013, which county has the highest age-adjusted incidence
rate of female breast cancer among women aged 50 and older?
Steele County
5. How many new cases of breast cancer occurred in females 50 years of
age and older in MN from 2009 to 2013?
16,134
6. Why have some of the county rates of breast cancer been suppressed
(as indicated by **)?
The underlying population of females aged 50 years or older was less than
1,000 (or 5,000 people in the 5-year period), so the rate was suppressed to
protect individual privacy.
GO BACK to the main page of the website by clicking the home icon.
III. You would like to know more about the rates of childhood lead levels and
testing in Minnesota:
Click on “Childhood Lead Exposure”
7. What is one of the major risk factors for childhood lead poisoning?
Housing built before 1950 when lead paint was phased out.
Or living in a house built before 1978 when lead paint was banned
8. How many children born in 2009 were tested for blood lead in
Minnesota?
57,364