Community-Level Health Database
AHRQ's database on Community-Level Health (CLH) was created under a project funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) Trust Fund. The purpose of this project is to create easy to use, linkable small-area data on health-related factors to use in PCOR research, inform approaches to address emerging health issues, and ultimately contribute to improved health outcomes.
The database was developed to make it easier to find a range of well documented, readily linkable variables without having to access multiple source files, facilitating health outcomes research and analysis.
Variables in the files correspond to five topic areas: demographics (e.g., age, veteran status), economics (e.g., income, unemployment rate), education, physical infrastructure (e.g, internet connectivity, food and exercise access), and health (e.g., health providers, health conditions). The files can be linked to other data by geography (county, ZIP Code, census tract, and census block group). The database includes data files by year at four levels of geography, codebooks by year, and a documentation file.
The data contained in the CLH Database are drawn from multiple sources and variables may have differing availability, patterns of missing, and methodological considerations across sources, geographies, and years. Users should refer to the data source documentation and codebooks, as well as the original data sources, to help identify these patterns. AHRQ welcomes feedback on the CLH Database. If users have questions, suggestions, or any issues with the data, send feedback to CLH@ahrq.hhs.gov.
Download Data and Documentation
Data Source Documentation (PDF, 9.2 MB) contains information for researchers about the structure and contents of the database and descriptions of each data source used to populate the database.
| Codebook Files 2009-2023 | County Data 2009-2023 | ZIP Code Data 2011-2023 | Census Tract Data 2009-2023 | Census Block Group Data 2013-2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 (XLSX, 396 KB) | 2009 (XLSX, 10 MB) | 2009 (XLSX, 82 MB) | ||
| 2010 (XLSX, 427 KB) | 2010 (XLSX, 12 MB) | 2010 (XLSX, 102 MB) | ||
| 2011 (XLSX, 453 KB) | 2011 (XLSX, 12 MB) | 2011 (XLSX, 50 MB) | 2011 (XLSX, 92 MB) | |
| 2012 (XLSX, 457 KB) | 2012 (XLSX, 12 MB) | 2012 (XLSX, 52 MB) | 2012 (XLSX, 96 MB) | |
| 2013 (XLSX, 495 KB) | 2013 (XLSX, 13 MB) | 2013 (XLSX, 58 MB) | 2013 (XLSX, 107 MB) | 2013 (XLSX, 209 MB) |
| 2014 (XLSX, 504 KB) | 2014 (XLSX, 14 MB) | 2014 (XLSX, 58 MB) | 2014 (XLSX, 108 MB) | 2014 (XLSX, 208 MB) |
| 2015 (XLSX, 518 KB) | 2015 (XLSX, 15 MB) | 2015 (XLSX, 58 MB) | 2015 (XLSX, 120 MB) | 2015 (XLSX, 208 MB) |
| 2016 (XLSX, 509 KB) | 2016 (XLSX, 14 MB) | 2016 (XLSX, 58 MB) | 2016 (XLSX, 108 MB) | 2016 (XLSX, 205 MB) |
| 2017 (XLSX, 512 KB) | 2017 (XLSX, 14 MB) | 2017 (XLSX, 62 MB) | 2017 (XLSX, 115 MB) | 2017 (XLSX, 224 MB) |
| 2018 (XLSX, 529 KB) | 2018 (XLSX, 16 MB) | 2018 (XLSX, 64 MB) | 2018 (XLSX, 120 MB) | 2018 (XLSX, 226 MB) |
| 2019 (XLSX, 517 KB) | 2019 (XLSX, 14 MB) | 2019 (XLSX, 63 MB) | 2019 (XLSX, 127 MB) | 2019 (XLSX, 228 MB) |
| 2020 (XLSX, 520 KB) | 2020 (XLSX, 15 MB) | 2020 (XLSX, 64 MB) | 2020 (XLSX, 129 MB) | 2020 (XLSX, 262 MB) |
| 2021 (XLSX, 522 KB) | 2021 (XLSX, 15 MB) | 2021 (XLSX, 64 MB) | 2021 (XLSX, 154 MB) | 2021 (XLSX, 258 MB) |
| 2022 (XLSX, 517 KB) | 2022 (XLSX, 14 MB) | 2022 (XLSX, 65 MB) | 2022 (XLSX, 159 MB) | 2022 (XLSX, 262 MB) |
| 2023 (XLSX, 471 KB) | 2023 (XLSX, 10 MB) | 2023 (XLSX, 60 MB) | 2023 (XLSX, 133 MB) | 2023 (XLSX, 262 MB) |
These files update and replace the SDOH Database (version 1). To ensure consistency in variable names and construction, analyses should not combine data from prior versions and the updated CLH Database.
Visualizing Community-Level Data
To demonstrate the possibilities of data included in the CLH data files, AHRQ created the visualization Poverty and Access to Internet, by County that shows county-level percentages of households with computers and smartphones and percentages of households with any type of broadband (including cellular data plans). Because these rates increase with income, the map also shows county-level percentages of individuals in poverty.
This work was supported by the Office of the Secretary Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund Under Interagency Agreement OS-ASPE-PCORTF-AHRQ-2023-002.
