Excel and Communicating Public Health Data

Assignment Overview

In this Case Assignment, you will learn how to sort data and apply simple mathematic operations using Excel and a real database maintained by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Case Assignment

The Centers for Disease Control contains many interactive datasets for public use. For this Case Assignment, you will apply basic Excel functions to a spreadsheet generated by the CDC on Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity. Use the Excel Tutorial to learn the steps required for each part of the Case Assignment. Use the optional readings in your Background page to locate additional Excel help and tutorials.

Your assignment consists of three parts:

Part I

Sort the data on the spreadsheet to answer the following questions:

1. Which state had the highest percent of low-income children aged 2 to less than 5 years who are obese (MBI for age and sex > 95th percentile on CED growth chart)? What is the percent value?
2. Which state had the highest sample size?
3. What percent of the total sample size was represented by tribes in the United States?

Save each sort and submit it as a worksheet in your Excel workbook. Label each worksheet.

Part II

Use the linked map generated by this data set to answer the following questions:

1. What regional trends in this data are illustrated on this map?
2. Which states showed the highest obesity rates? Which showed the lowest?

Part III

1. Use the CDC site Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity: Data, Trends and Maps to generate your own table and map by selecting your own criteria. You will need to select a location, an Indicator Category, and then an Indicator from the drop-down menus provided. Once your map and table is generated, scroll to the bottom of the page to locate the citation information you will need for your references section.
2. Copy and paste the data table you generated into an Excel spreadsheet. Manipulate the columns and cells to display the data accurately, and then report the regions with the highest and lowest trends by sorting the data.
3. Insert your sorted spreadsheet as a Table and your map as an image on PowerPoint slides. Include a Title slide and a reference slide. Describe the trends for each table and image in the Notes section of the respective slide.

Assignment Expectations

Answer the questions for Parts I and II on a Word document. Use complete sentences. Create a workbook to show your sorting results for Part I as individual worksheets. For example, Worksheet 1 should be titled “Percent Sort;” Worksheet 2 should be title “Sample Size Sort;” and Worksheet 3, “Calculations.” Part III should be submitted as a PowerPoint presentation containing at least 4 slides including the Title slide, Table slide, Map slide, and References slide.

In summary, upload the following into the Case 3 dropbox by the module due date:

1 Word Document

1 Excel workbook with 3 worksheets

1 PowerPoint presentation with 4 slides