Focus Areas
Norlowe Research works in three related areas. Each section below describes the questions examined and the data sources most often used.
Diabetes
Diabetes is common and usually lifelong, and the information about it is spread across many sources. National health surveys measure it with laboratory tests, insurance and spending records show how care is used, and county estimates show where the burden falls.
Norlowe Research analyzes these sources to describe the condition and the care that people with it receive. Surveys, claims and medical records do not count cases the same way, so the definition of diabetes used in each analysis is written into its plan.
Data often used
- National health and nutrition surveys
- Medical spending and insurance data
- County health estimates
Cardiovascular disease
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Public information on it includes hospital outcome measures, records of clinical trials and a large body of published research.
Results from these sources are reported with a measure of their uncertainty.
Data often used
- Hospital outcome and quality data
- Clinical trial registries
- Published medical research
Medication safety
What is known about a medicine’s safety keeps growing after approval. Reports of adverse events, revisions to the drug label and changes in prescribing all add to the record.
The company uses these records to describe how medicines are used and which problems are reported once they are on the market.
Data often used
- Adverse event reporting systems
- Drug labeling
- Prescription claims data
About the data
Most of the data Norlowe Research uses are published by federal agencies and clinical trial registries for public use. The release or version of each source is recorded with every analysis.
Public-use health files are released without names or other direct identifiers. Use of these data does not imply endorsement by the organizations that publish them, and each source is used under its publisher’s terms.