Step 2. Characterizing the Limitations of Health Data

General Sources of Data

Because the health outcome data evaluation relies on available information, the health assessor needs to identify and characterize any limitations associated with the collected data. For instance, data might be available for a county, but data specific to the neighborhood near the site cannot be separated from the county data.

The following two limitations typically are associated with general sources of available health outcome data.

•Data are not specific to the community near the site

•Data do not address the specific disease that community members were concerned about