Fresh consumer product data
How many people did space heaters or turkey fryers hurt in the past year? Journalists can use the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Injury and Death database, recently updated by the IRE and NICAR Database Library, to investigate these and other products.
The database consists of four tables provided by the commission's National Injury Information Clearinghouse. The CPSC maintains this data so it can alert the public to potential hazards associated with consumer products. Fields include age, race and gender of the victim, state and city of the incident, product type involved and more. To order the database, call the Database Library at 573-884-7711 or go online to www.ire.org/datalibrary/databases/cpsc.
Tangled webs
IRE and NICAR are beginning to more deeply explore social network analysis for visualizing and diagramming relationships between individuals, businesses and institutions. It's a new approach for journalists, but business consultants, law enforcement agencies and public health investigators have used this approach for decades. In 2003, The Washington Post used social network analysis to report on a group of Los Angeles-area language schools that appeared to be "visa mills" for foreign students. For more information and a list of Web links and tipsheets on this emerging technique, go to www.ire.org/sna.
Baby dentistry
The IRE and NICAR Database Library worked with WCNC-Charlotte, N.C. to analyze Medicaid data for a story that aired in December. The Database Library transferred tapes of Medicaid billing records to Microsoft Access and FoxPro and identified pediatric dentists spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money on unneeded root canals in babies. The analysis found that the main metropolitan Medicaid centers in North Carolina treated fewer than 10 percent of the kids on Medicaid in the state, but performed almost half of the baby root canals. To view the story, go to www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/stories/wcnc-121803-al medicaid.b4d99017.html. The series won a Scripps Howard Foundation national journalism award for excellence in electronic media, large market television/cable. For more information on how IRE and NICAR can help your news organization with data analysis, contact the Database Library at 573-884-7711.
News resources
When news breaks, journalists can find help at IRE's "In the News" Web pages. The special sections list useful databases, publications and Internet sites that can add depth to deadline reporting. When a tanker truck fell from an overpass above I-95 near Baltimore, IRE and NICAR suggested several databases from the U.S. Department of Transportation containing truck accident and hazardous material release reports. To learn more about this and other resources available, visit www.ire.org/inthenews_archive