Selected Geographic Resources from the Bureau of Health Profession's Area Resource File (ARF) System for the State of South Dakota

摘要

The first format is the Basic Area Profile, which provides a compact profile of selected data for a particular area, which brings together the major health-related data on the area. Such profiles are presented for the U.S. as a whole, for the State, and for each county within the State. The second type of format is the Ranking Profile, which ranks selected geographic areas for the State, and its counties on the basis of 35 variables or ratios of variables. In this output, these data items for the State are ranked against all other States in the United States, numerically in descending order (that is, a rank of '1' is given to the largest number, regardless of whether a high number is desirable or not), and each county within the State is ranked against all other counties in the State. For example, a Ranking Profile is provided which ranks physician-population ratios in a particular county against all other counites in the State, starting with the highest ratio in any county and proceeding through all others to the one with the lowest ratio. Thus, in a single report, one can identify how a particular county ranks on each of a number of variables, such as total population, rural population, nonwhite population, nurse/population ratio, and other measures.