INTRODUCTION
ORGANIZATIONOFTHEREPORT
This
publication by the Arizona Department of
Health Services,
Arizona Health Status and
Vital Statistics 2013
,
is the annual update of
information on vital statistics and the health
status of Arizona residents. It provides
population-wide data on
pregnancies
,
births
,
abortions
,
stillbirths
,
reportable diseases
,
deaths
,
marriages
,
divorces,
hospital inpatient
discharges, emergency department visits,
and
the
population
of the State.
The year 2013 report highlights both statewide
trends as well as inequalities in health by
subgroups including race/ethnicity, gender, and
county. When possible, the data for 2013 are
placed ina temporal context by comparisonwith
the data for preceding years. The information in
this volume consists of frequencies and rates of
vital events for the State's residents (except as
noted).
The updated
Index to Tables
in this report
contains entries referring to specific health
conditions, risk factors, disease categories,
diagnostic groupings, procedures performed on
hospital inpatients, and causes of death. The
report provides information tomonitoranumber
of the ?Winnable Battles? identified in the
ArizonaDepartment ofHealthServices?Strategic
Map including mortality data on obesity,
enterocolitis due to
Clostridium difficile
(an
infection associated with healthcare settings),
and suicide, as well as information on births,
fetal deaths, and abortions used to measure
teenage pregnancy.
Since 1992, the report has been organized into
three major parts, reflecting differences in
geographic coverage:
Part I is concernedwith
statewide
statistics,
Part II presents
county-level
information,
and
Part III is focused on
community-level
data.
The first two parts are further divided into
sections on reproductive and perinatal health,
mortality, utilization of hospital care, and the
status on year 2020 health objectives.
Not all health statistics are available or
effectively reported at the community level.
Hence, informationaboutpregnancies, stillbirths,
abortions, inpatientdischarges,emergency room
visits, reportable diseases, marriages, and
marriage dissolutions is given only for the State
and by county.
Part I of the report,
T
HE
S
TATE
,
has four
chapters. The first chapter deals with
reproductive and perinatal health
, i.e.,
characteristicsofwomenwhobecamepregnant,
factors related to the course of their
pregnancies, and the status of pregnancy
outcomes.Muchof thesedataaregiven for each
year from 2003 to 2013. The natality section of
this report is concerned with fertility and birth
rates, thegeneral healthof newbornsas indexed
by birthweight, prematurity, and selected
demographicandprenatal care characteristicsof
thewomen giving birth.
The second chapter is focused on
trends and
patterns in mortality
. It compares the annual
age-adjusted profile of leading causes of death
by gender from 2003 to 2013. Urban/rural and
racial/ethnic differences in cause-specific
mortality are also examined for Arizona
residents. The five leading causes of death are
discussed for infants (<1 year), children (1-14
years), adolescents (15-19years), youngadults
(20-44 years), middle-aged adults (45-64
years), and the elderly (65 or more years). For
each age group, cause-specific mortality is
comparedbetweenurban (Maricopa,Pima,Pinal,
and Yuma counties) and rural (Apache, Cochise,
Coconino, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, La Paz,
Mohave, Navajo, Santa Cruz, and Yavapai)
regionsandbetweengendersbyyear from2003
to 2013. Urban and rural regions are compared
ingender-specific totalmortality.Thechapteron
mortality concludes with an examination of
patterns of premature mortality by gender and
race/ethnicity.
Morbidity
, or the levels of disease in the
population, is the topic of the third chapter. The
presentation is limited to data on diseases
reported for theentirepopulationof theStateby
statutory mandate. Separate sections focus on
non-sexually transmitted diseases, sexually
transmitted
diseases,
and
human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Chapter 4 is focused on
inpatient hospital care
,
as well as
emergency room care
in Arizona in
2013. An inpatient discharge occurs when a
person who was admitted to a hospital leaves
that hospital. A person who has been admitted
to theemergency roomor asahospital inpatient
more than once in a given calendar year will be
counted multiple times as a discharge and
included more than once in the hospital
discharge data set; thus, the statistics on
inpatient hospital careandemergency roomcare
in this report are for discharges, not persons.
Arizona Health Status and Vital Statistics 2013
vii
