Get a grip on injury, death rates with new mobile app from CDC

Mar 20, 2014

Need to make a pitch for injury prevention? About to give an impromptu public health presentation that can benefit from a few sobering data points about leading causes of death in your state? (Or maybe you just have a keen interest in the macabre while waiting for the bus.)

Well, go grab your iPads: The Center for Disease Control’s national Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System or WISQARS has now been packaged into a portable mobile app for iPad users that performs when and where you need it.

WISQUARS Mobile offers public health officials, researchers, journalists, teachers, policy makers and the public a movable database chock-full of statistics and customizable (and exportable!) maps and charts that put injury and death data into clear visual perspective. The vast database gives death rates for each U.S. state — segmented by gender, race/ethnicity and age — for categories such as:

  • Overall leading causes of death (e.g., common diseases)
  • Unintentional poisoning;
  • Unintentional motor vehicle/traffic accidents;
  • Traumatic brain injury; and
  • Suicide and homicide.

WISQARS app showing US total death rates across four charts

As an added plus: The maps and charts can be adjusted for enhanced viewing and are easy to read and understand. Want to know about the leading cause of death in California? Just find and tap the state on the national map, and you’ll get three charts along the bottom of the screen that have sliced and diced the data into demographic buckets. (BTW, from 2008-2010, it was heart disease at 25.45 percent for “all persons.”)

WISQARS mobile app showing death rates for California across 4 charts

Death might be an inescapable fact of life, but having the facts when and where you need them can make a difference in helping others, and ourselves, live as long and as healthy as possible. Take the WISQARS Mobile app for a spin, and you might be surprised what you learn.

You can also download other mobile government apps with just a few clicks from our USA.gov Apps Gallery.

Mar 20, 2014