Statistics

Finding Statistics on Children and Violence: Guidelines

Finding statistics is a daunting task, and finding health statistics is even more difficult. Some of the reasons that current statistics are so hard to find include:

In order for the statistic/data to exist, someone must gather them. If a reason doesn’t exist to collect data (and the manpower), no statistical data is generated.
It takes time to compile statistics; therefore, you may find statistics that are several years old.
Statistics are often buried deeply in articles, reports, books, etc. Without adequate indexing, they’re incredibly hard to find.
You may find statistics on your topic but they’re not exactly what you wanted, i.e. the data collectors didn’t count what you wanted counted.

Some important considerations:

Reliability/integrity of source
Understanding implications
Experimental design (sample size/selection, statistical methods, etc.)
Range of dates covered

Tutorials

Finding Health Related Statistics: A tutorial (University of North Carolina Health Sciences Library) html

Finding and Using Health Statistics: A Self-Study Course (Dan Melnick, PhD. 10/10/2000) html