SHADAC’s State Health Compare is an online data visualization tool that allows users to explore and download health data sets and statistics. These data are broken down into measures that range from ‘Insurance Coverage Type’ to ‘Adult Smoking.’ Measures are divided into overall categories like “Health Behaviors,” “Cost of Care,” “Outcomes,” and more.
SHADAC’s public health research fellows and analysts consistently update measures on State Health Compare (SHC) in order to provide users with the most up-to-date available data. In this post, we will review the health data sets and measures that have been updated since our 2025 measure update blog, including a short explanation of the measure and its data source.
As readers may note, not all measures that were included in last year’s update blog are listed below, as some federal survey data releases have undergone changes in the past year. You can read more about these changes here.
Measures Updated Using American Community Survey and Current Population Survey Data
The American Community Survey (ACS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS) are both large-scale federal survey resources, gathering data on health insurance coverage, demographic data collection, employment information, and more. While similar, there are key differences between the ACS vs CPS that we delve into in a previous blog. You can also learn more about the history of the ACS here.
American Community Survey Measure Updates
The following measures were updated using 2024 American Community Survey (ACS) estimates, which are the most recent data available for this survey.
- Health Insurance Coverage Type
- Income Inequality
- Unaffordable Rents
- Broadband Internet Access
- The percent of households with a broadband internet subscription has steadily increased from 2016 to 2024, from 81.3% to 93.2%, respectively. Though the largest increase occurred between 2019 and 2021 (during the COVID pandemic), a significant 1.1 percentage-point (PP) increase also occurred between 2023 to 2024. Broadband internet access became especially important during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, when telehealth became a staple of health care.
Current Population Survey Measure Updates
The following measures were updated using estimates from the 2025 Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), which, despite the name, actually refer to data from 2024, and are the most recent data available for this survey.
Measures Updated Using BRFSS Data
The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is an annual, telephone-based survey of U.S. adults that collects data on health-related questions including demographic information, behaviors, perceptions, and more.
BRFSS data includes 50-state data on health outcomes and behaviors, giving researchers and analysts a helpful resource for tracking the effects of health policy and initiatives.
Learn more about what the BRFSS is and how researchers can use it here.
Using BRFSS data, we updated the following measures with data from 2024:
- Adults Who Forgo Needed Medical Care Due to Cost
- Read our blog, Unaffordable Health Care Costs: More U.S. Adults Forgo Care Due to Cost in 2024, Differences Seen by State, Insurance Coverage Type, Chronic Disease Status, to learn more about this measure.
- Adult Excessive Alcohol Consumption
- Adult Smoking
- Chronic Disease Prevalence
- Activities Limited Due to Health Difficulty
- Adults with No Personal Doctor
- From 2023 to 2024, there was a 1.6 PP decrease among uninsured adults who do not have a personal doctor, dropping significantly from 66.1% to 64.5% over the one-year period. Similarly, there was a 1.7 PP decrease among adults with individual insurance who do not have a personal doctor, from 14.9% to 13.2%, also a statistically significant finding.
- Adult Cancer Screenings
Per Person State Public Health Funding Measure Updated with 2024 and 2025 Data
The “Per Person State Public Health Funding” measure has now been updated with 2024 and 2025 estimates based on data collected by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH).
Note that users should be cautious in making comparisons between states on this measure, as the scope of what states report can vary considerably. This measure is more useful as a way to interpret changes in a given state's funding over time.
Explore Data Visualizations, Health Statistics, and Health Data Sets on State Health Compare
All of these measures, and more, are available now on State Health Compare. You can explore the state-level data and health statistics yourself, creating customized data visualizations and downloadable health data sets for your own analysis.
Have you used State Health Compare for a project, report, publication, or blog? We would love to hear from you! Contact us here, or you can follow and tag us on LinkedIn.