The opioid epidemic is a public health crisis that continues to claim lives every day.
Opioids are a class of drugs that includes the illegal drug heroin, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and pain relievers available legally by prescription, such as oxycodone (OxyContin®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), codeine and morphine.

Hunger is a challenge for many Ramsey County residents. We have higher rates of food insecurity, also known as hunger, than the Minnesota state average and this gap widened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, 12% of residents in Ramsey County were food insecure, whereas the state average was 10% (Figure 1). This trend continued in 2021.

This public use dataset has 11 data elements reflecting United States COVID-19 community levels for all available counties. This dataset contains the same values used to display information available on the COVID Data Tracker at: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view?list_select_state=all_states&list_select_county=all_counties&data-type=CommunityLevels
The data are updated weekly.

CDC looks at the combination of three metrics — new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 population in the past 7 days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days — to determine the COVID-19 community level. The COVID-19 community level is determined by the higher of the new admissions and inpatient beds metrics, based on the current level of new cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days. New COVID-19 admissions and the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied represent the current potential for strain on the health system. Data on new cases acts as an early warning indicator of potential increases in health system strain in the event of a COVID-19 surge.
Using these data, the COVID-19 community level is classified as low, medium, or high.
COVID-19 Community Levels can help communities and individuals make decisions based on their local context and their unique needs. Community vaccination coverage and other local information, like early alerts from surveillance, such as through wastewater or the number of emergency department visits for COVID-19, when available, can also inform decision making for health officials and individuals.

See https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/community-levels.html for more information.

For the most accurate and up-to-date data for any county or state, visit the relevant health department website. COVID Data Tracker may display data that differ from state and local websites. This can be due to differences in how data were collected, how metrics were calculated, or the timing of web updates.

For more details on the Minnesota Department of Health COVID-19 thresholds, see COVID-19 Public Health Risk Measures: Data Notes (Updated 4/13/22). https://mn.gov/covid19/assets/phri_tcm1148-434773.pdf

Note:
This dataset was renamed from "United States COVID-19 Community Levels by County as Originally Posted" to "United States COVID-19 Community Levels by County" on March 31, 2022.
March 31, 2022: Column name for county population was changed to “county_population”. No change was made to the data points previous released.
March 31, 2022: New column, “health_service_area_population”, was added to the dataset to denote the total population in the designated Health Service Area based on 2019 Census estimate.
March 31, 2022: FIPS codes for territories American Samoa, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and United States Virgin Islands were re-formatted to 5-digit numeric for records released on 3/3/2022 to be consistent with other records in the dataset.
March 31, 2022: Changes were made to the text fields in variables “county”, “state”, and “health_service_area” so the formats are consistent across releases.
March 31, 2022: The “%” sign was removed from the text field in column “covid_inpatient_bed_utilization”. No change was made to the data. As indicated in the column description, values in this column represent the percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients (7-day average).
March 31, 2022: Data values for columns, “county_population”, “health_service_area_number”, and “health_service_area” were backfilled for records released on 2/24/2022. These columns were added since the week of 3/3/2022, thus the values were previously missing for records released the week prior.
April 7, 2022: Updates made to data released on 3/24/2022 for Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and United States Virgin Islands to correct a data mapping error.

This COVID-19 digital dashboard has been created using data Saint Paul – Ramsey County Public Health receives from the Minnesota Department of Health. The county health department reviews the data before it is posted.

Note: This dataset has been limited to show metrics for Ramsey County, Minnesota.

This dataset represents COVID-19 hospitalization data and metrics aggregated to county or county-equivalent, for all counties or county-equivalents (including territories) in the United States. COVID-19 hospitalization data are reported to CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network, which monitors national and local trends in healthcare system stress, capacity, and community disease levels for approximately 6,000 hospitals in the United States. Data reported by hospitals to NHSN and included in this dataset represent aggregated counts and include metrics capturing information specific to COVID-19 hospital admissions, and inpatient and ICU bed capacity occupancy.

Reporting information:
As of December 15, 2022, COVID-19 hospital data are required to be reported to NHSN, which monitors national and local trends in healthcare system stress, capacity, and community disease levels for approximately 6,000 hospitals in the United States. Data reported by hospitals to NHSN represent aggregated counts and include metrics capturing information specific to hospital capacity, occupancy, hospitalizations, and admissions. Prior to December 15, 2022, hospitals reported data directly to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or via a state submission for collection in the HHS Unified Hospital Data Surveillance System (UHDSS).
While CDC reviews these data for errors and corrects those found, some reporting errors might still exist within the data. To minimize errors and inconsistencies in data reported, CDC removes outliers before calculating the metrics. CDC and partners work with reporters to correct these errors and update the data in subsequent weeks.
Many hospital subtypes, including acute care and critical access hospitals, as well as Veterans Administration, Defense Health Agency, and Indian Health Service hospitals, are included in the metric calculations provided in this report. Psychiatric, rehabilitation, and religious non-medical hospital types are excluded from calculations.
Data are aggregated and displayed for hospitals with the same Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Certification Number (CCN), which are assigned by CMS to counties based on the CMS Provider of Services files.
Full details on COVID-19 hospital data reporting guidance can be found here: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-faqs-hospitals-hospital-laboratory-acute-care-facility-data-reporting.pdf

Calculation of county-level hospital metrics:
County-level hospital data are derived using calculations performed at the Health Service Area (HSA) level. An HSA is defined by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics as a geographic area containing at least one county which is self-contained with respect to the population’s provision of routine hospital care. Every county in the United States is assigned to an HSA, and each HSA must contain at least one hospital. Therefore, use of HSAs in the calculation of local hospital metrics allows for more accurate characterization of the relationship between health care utilization and health status at the local level.
Data presented at the county-level represent admissions, hospital inpatient and ICU bed capacity and occupancy among hospitals within the selected HSA. Therefore, admissions, capacity, and occupancy are not limited to residents of the selected HSA.
For all county-level hospital metrics listed below the values are calculated first for the entire HSA, and then the HSA-level value is then applied to each county within the HSA.
For all county-level hospital metrics listed below the values are calculated first for the entire HSA, and then the HSA-level value is then applied to each county within the HSA.

Metric details:
Time period: data for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) will update weekly on Thursdays as soon as they are reviewed and verified, usually before 8 pm ET. Updates will occur

Ramsey County has sharply reduced the number of children exposed to lead paint hazards through our lead window replacement program.

Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, parasites, or fungi; the diseases can be spread, directly or indirectly, from one person to another.

Data on the use of grant funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the City of Saint Paul to replace deteriorating windows painted with lead-based paint.

Organic waste includes things like food scraps and non-recyclable paper (tissues, paper towels, etc.) Recycling organics helps the environment by avoiding methane emissions that contribute to global climate change. It also returns essential nutrients to the soil and improves soil health.

Ramsey County’s Pre-Demolition Inspection Program is a unique asset to county residents. Learn more about how Saint Paul-Ramsey County Public Health identifies hazardous building materials before a building is demolished