UConn Health’s academic entrance. Credit: Contributed / UConn
HARTFORD, CT — Health organizations, data experts and state agencies now have a revamped tool to provide access to mental health and substance use data in Connecticut.
Representatives from the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, UConn Health and CTData Collaborative debuted the redesigned State Epidemiological Outcomes Workgroup (SEOW) Prevention Data Portal Wednesday at a virtual press conference..
The portal is designed to provide researchers, journalists, and community members statewide with streamlined access to mental health and substance use data through interactive visualizations and centralized resources.
Sarju Shah, director of Prevention and Health Promotion at DMHAS, said the portal is a collaborative effort between state and community partners to bring information from multiple sources into one hub, with the understanding that no single agency, organization, or data source can provide the complete picture on mental health and substance abuse trends in the state.
“We have to understand what is happening. We have to look at what those data points are,” she said. “What data really helps us do is really ask those important questions. What is happening? Where is it happening? Who is affected? And are things changing over time? Ultimately, we’re really looking at what are the opportunities to make a difference.”
Jennifer Sussman, a clinical research associate with the Center for Prevention Evaluation and Statistics at UConn Health said the portal was designed with a “no wrong door” approach, where data is provided in a number of formats to meet diverse use cases. The portal does not itself store datasets, instead making access to public data from multiple sources more easily accessible.
“The goal here is applying the most relevant data from multiple sources to answer these complex public health questions,” she said. “One data element, one data source, one statistic is just not going to do the job when it comes to kind of unpacking these complex problems.”
Sussman demonstrated one possible use of the portal by exploring the impacts of cannabis use in the state. She showed data that cannabis use in the most recent month was more than double what it was in 2013, from 8.5% of state residents to nearly 18%.
Although cannabis was legalized in the state in 2021, Sussman pointed out the data demonstrates a large percentage of users are under the age of 21. For example, the portal can go into granular detail, showing the number of at-risk youth between the ages of 12-17 who have tried marijuana in a given region. Cannabis and other substances remain illegal for those under 21.
Youth intervention and prevention is a major use case for the portal, as it also tracks disconnected youth in each region, officials said. The portal defines disconnected youth as people between 16 and 19 who are neither working nor in school. Shah said it was important to keep track of the group because they are not represented in school-based surveys such as the Connecticut School Health Survey. Additionally, they are more likely to be at increased risk for substance abuse while not being reached by traditional student or curriculum-based prevention programs.
“This is important information to know because it governs access to services,” Sussman said. “his alone would be enough to get the thinking started on regional prevention strategies, and really identify where more data might be needed, including all important data at the community level for more localized planning. But as a state-level planner, you would start to see areas that present opportunities for prevention planning.”