Health Data Portal: Q&A for Policy Makers
What public officials and their constituents need to know to use Louisiana Department of Health's online health data tool to identify and respond to local health concerns
Click here for pdf version of questions and answers. 
What is the Health Data Portal?
With funding from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Louisiana Department of Health launched the Health Data Portal in 2016. It can be found at http://healthdata.ldh.la.gov.
The Health Data Portal is an interactive website that makes Louisiana’s environmental hazard and related health data (diabetes, asthma and birth defects) and information accessible to:
- health officials;
- local and state agencies;
- decision makers and the media;
- healthcare organizations;
- community-based organizations and other non-profits;
- businesses and academic researchers from local colleges and universities and other institutions.
How can the Health Data Portal be used?
Several municipalities have already used data from the LDH’s online data tool to:
- inform local and state decision makers and residents about health issues affecting their communities;
- identify communities at risk;
- and to make decisions about how to better allocate their resources.
Municipalities, businesses, community-based organizations and other non-profits can also use data from LDH's online health tool to support grant applications and other projects.
What data is available?
Most of the data are currently available at the state or parish level. More local level data will be made available in the future.
The years of data vary according to which resources are available to collect and translate the data and which data are available from each provider.
Examples of the types of data available on the Health Data Portal include:
- drinking water
- outdoor air
- asthma
- health attacks
- birth dfects
- heat illness and
- injury
Email LDH's Environmental Public Health Tracking Program at tracking@la.gov or call them at 1-888-293-7020 to receive a comprehensive list of the data available on the Department's Health Data Portal.
How to get help accessing the Health Data Portal
LDH's Tracking Program is hosting web demonstrations to help municipalities, businesses, healthcare organizations, community-based organizations, and non-profits use the Health Data Portal
Who to contact to request data or support from the Health Data Portal?
Anyone requiring assistance or additional data can email LDH's Tracking Program at tracking@la.gov or call them at
1-888-293-7020 to receive assistance with their public health data needs.