Who can use CHAT?
The Community Health Assessment Tool (CHAT) is restricted for use by:
- Assessment staff at Local Health Jurisdictions (LHJs)
- Washington State Department of Health
- Tribal health agencies
- Other state government agencies engaged in public health activities.
CHAT is accessed through a data confidentiality agreement available by contacting the CHAT Epidemiologist/Coordinator.
What is CHAT?
CHAT provides a secure, online query system for population health-based data sets maintained by the Washington State Department of Health. The tool allows users to conduct analyses for community health assessment.
Learn more about Community Health Assessment and tools
What information is in CHAT?
CHAT contains detailed information on a series of topics with statistics related to the data topic. The data topics in CHAT cover a variety of Washington state population health-based datasets that include:
- Pregnancy, Fertility, and Abortion
- Birth Risk Factors
- Communicable Diseases
- Tuberculosis
- Sexually Transmitted Diseases
- Cancer Incidence
- Hospitalizations
- Hospitalizations for Injuries
- Death
- Fatal Injuries
- Life Expectancy
- Infant Death and Risk Factors
- Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (survey-based dataset)
- WA Opioid Quarterly Report
How does it work?
The Department of Health collects and reviews health data. When imported into CHAT, data can be stratified by age, gender, race, ethnicity, and geographic location. Statistical tests can identify relationships and trends in the data. The tool also allows users to save queries for repeated use over time. Periodic data releases, updates and corrections maintain the timeliness of the data. Data from CHAT can be exported as tables, which can be exported to Excel or other programs, or as charts.
Contact Us
If you have questions about this software or need to arrange access to CHAT, please contact:
Center for Health Statistics
Washington State Department of Health
CHAT Epidemiologist/Coordinator
CHS.CHAT@doh.wa.gov
360-236-4175