User's Guide to Minnesota Public Health Data Access
The Minnesota Public Health Data Access portal (also called the Data Access Portal) provides access to data on a variety of environmental and health topics. This user's guide includes:
What to use the portal for:
How to use the portal:
All topics that the portal has data for are listed on the portal home page and the All Topics page. One tab shows all topics, listed alphabetically, and another shows them listed by category: Child Health, Climate, Diseases and Conditions, Environmental Health, Health Behaviors and Risk Factors, and Healthy Homes.
Each topic includes:
- Topic main page - with a description of the topic and links to resources
- View Charts - shows charts and graphs of data collected on the topic
- Explore data - query tool to customize data, if available
- Maps - browser interactive or static maps
- About the data - background information on how the data were collected and analyzed, including data sources
Throughout these pages, you can hover the mouse pointer over some words and charts to get definitions of words, or to show the numbers for the data in charts.
To return to the home page, click Home icon on the top left.
Each topic area on the portal has a web page with information and details about the data. This page identifies the source of the data, as well as the data's strengths and limitations. For an example, see About the cancer data.
Some topics have data that can be displayed in an interactive map. Each topic that has a map has a Maps navigation button on the upper left of the page. Clicking this button brings you to a interactive data mapping page. To understand the mapped data, please be sure to read the Topic Information pages.
Maps pages navigation:
- Along the top of maps are links to:
About - which provides background on the data used to create the map;
Table - that shows the map data in a table format; and
Tools - where you can find Zoom tools and download options.
Hover:
- When you hover your mouse pointer over a county on a map, the data value for that county displays in the hover box in lower left.
Download or print:
You can download or print the map by clicking on "Map Tools" in the map pane.
Explore data
Data queries have been developed to allow you to generate a custom data table based on your specifications.
If a topic has an Explore data navigation button on the top left of the Topic Page, then its data can be queried. Choose a data option for each section available e.g. year(s), county(ies).
When you are finished setting up your query, click "submit query." A table will appear showing the data that you have chosen.
You can also scroll back up and change the specifications of your data query. To save this table, click the button labeled "Download Data."
To return to the Data Access Portal home, click "Home icon on the top-left menu.
To search the portal, go to the search bar on the top banner of any page. Enter something you would like to search for - for example, Melanoma - and click the magnifying glass on the right side of the search bar. The search results allow you to filter the results by topic information available on the Data Access Portal or on the Minnesota Department of Health website.
The Data Access Portal has several resources to help you use and understand the information:
- To get definitions of words you don't understand, visit the Data Portal Glossary.
- If this page did not answer all of your questions, please go to Frequently Asked Questions.
- To learn more about data and statistics, visit Data Resources.
If you need help with something, email health.dataportal@state.mn.us.