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 New Mexico’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
Serious issues exist:
- does not have a clear full definition of cases
- does not provide a breakdown of confirmed and probable cases
- does not publish what test types are included in their main testing metric
- does not provide a testing metric clearly including only viral RNA tests
- does not regularly provide antigen total test counts
- does not regularly provide antigen positive test counts
- does not regularly provide total tests in terms of unique people tested
- does not provide numbers for patients currently on ventilators with COVID-19
- does not provide numbers for patients currently in the ICU with COVID-19
Race and Ethnicity
Some issues exist:
- does not report race / ethnicity data for tests
- reports Asian or Pacific Islander, a category that has not been used for federal data since 1997, making comparisons more difficult
- reports race data for 85% of cases and 97% of deaths
Long-Term Care
Some issues exist:
- does not provide Facility Location data
- does not provide information about facilities with open and closed outbreaks, or date of last case
- does not provide either staff or resident cumulative cases by facility
- does not provide either staff or resident cumulative deaths by facility
- does not provide either staff or resident cases for the current outbreaks state-wide
- does not provide a count of total number of facilities impacted
- provides the following metrics only via email outreach: Facility Name, Facility Type, Download and/or Machine Readable facility data, Staff Outbreak Cases per facility, Res Outbreak Cases per facility, Combined Staff Res Current Outbreak Deaths per facility, Staff Cumulative Cases statewide, Res Cumulative Cases statewide, Staff Cumulative Deaths statewide, Res Cumulative Deaths statewide