FY 2024 Annual Performance Plan and Report - Strategic Goal 4: Objective 4.4

Fiscal Year 2024
Released March, 2023

Topics on this page: Objective 4.4: Improve data collection, use, and evaluation, to increase evidence-based knowledge that leads to better health outcomes, reduced health disparities, and improved social well-being, equity, and economic resilience | Objective 4.4 Table of Related Performance Measures

Objective 4.4: Improve data collection, use, and evaluation, to increase evidence-based knowledge that leads to better health outcomes, reduced health disparities, and improved social well-being, equity, and economic resilience

HHS invests in strategies to improve data collection, use, and evaluation, to increase evidence-based knowledge that leads to better health outcomes, reduced health disparities, and improved social well-being, equity, and economic resilience. HHS leverages different types of data, such as administrative data and research data, to guide its actions. HHS is establishing a Department-wide approach to improve data collection, close data gaps, transform data, and share data for better HHS analysis and evaluation. HHS also fosters collaborations to expand data access and sharing to create more opportunities to use HHS data to increase knowledge of health, public health, and human service outcomes. HHS is improving data collection and conducting evaluations to understand the drivers for inequities in health outcomes, social well-being, and economic resilience while working to increase capacity and the use of evaluations at HHS to inform evidence-based decision making.

The Office of the Secretary leads this objective. The following divisions are responsible for implementing programs under this strategic objective: ACF, ACL, AHRQ, ASPE, CDC, CMS, FDA, HRSA, IHS, NIH, OASH, OCR, OGA, ONC, and SAMHSA. In consultation with OMB, HHS has determined that performance toward this objective is progressing. The narrative below provides a brief summary of progress made and achievements or challenges, as well as plans to improve or maintain performance.

Objective 4.4 Table of Related Performance Measures

CDC uses several indicators to measure its ability to provide timely, useful, and high-quality data. CDC is improving access to NCHS online data sources, including integrating and simplifying existing points of access. Projects underway include developing a scalable data query system and a single data repository with standard and searchable metadata - with the goal of improving user experiences in accessing and using NCHS data. The number of visits to the NCHS website is nearly three times more than the average number of visitors since 2015, likely due to the increased focus on available data during the pandemic. CDC interviews Federal Power Users (key federal officials involved in health and health care policy or programs) to assess their satisfaction with CDC's Health Statistics products and services, including data quality, ease of data accessibility and use, professionalism of staff, relevance of data to major health issues, and relevance of data to user needs. One hundred percent of federal power users rated NCHS as "good" or "excellent" in data quality – meeting the target for the second consecutive year.