For months, we have been collecting COVID-19 data, scrutinizing publicly available data definitions, and engaging in frequent conversations with jurisdictions to understand the data they share.
During this process, we have focused on three aspects of COVID-19 data reporting: 1) how the state defines and reports key metrics, such as testing data, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, 2) how the state presents information about COVID-19 in long-term-care facilities, and 3) how the state reports race and ethnicity data.
Our assessment below reflects both the thoroughness of Iowa’s reporting and the completeness and clarity of their data descriptions. We hope this work will not only help our data users to better grasp the limitations of these numbers but also might help health officials to understand the differences in data reporting across jurisdictions.
We require data definitions to be accessible from a state’s data pages and presented in a location where it is clear they will be maintained. Examples include data definition documents, data FAQs, dashboard footnotes, or definitions appearing daily in press releases.
Last updated March 2, 2021
State-level metrics
Some issues exist:
- does not provide a breakdown of confirmed and probable cases
- does not regularly provide a cumulative number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19
- data for multiple key metrics is hard to discover or access
- does not provide latest tests and cases data in machine readable format
- does not provide historical tests and cases data in machine readable format
Race and Ethnicity
Some issues exist:
- does not report race / ethnicity data for tests and hospitalizations
- reports both cases and deaths as percentages, leading to a loss of information because of rounding
- reports race data for 62% of cases and 98% of deaths, and ethnicity data for 61% of cases and 100% of deaths
Long-Term Care
Some issues exist:
- does not provide Facility Type data
- does not provice facilities data in a downloadable or machine readable form
- does not break out staff cumulative cases by facility
- does not break out resident cumulative cases by facility
- does not provide either staff or resident cumulative deaths by facility
- does not break out staff cases for the current outbreaks per facility
- does not break out resident cases for the current outbreaks per facility
- does not provide either staff or resident cumulative cases state-wide
- does not break out staff cumulative deaths state-wide
- does not break out staff cases for the current outbreaks state-wide
- does not break out resident cases for the current outbreaks state-wide