Methodology & Sources

How to trust these numbers, and where they come from.

Every number is sourced

Each dashboard draws on public federal, Indiana state, and Hamilton County data. The full, named, dated source catalog (with provenance, vintage, and refresh cadence for every dataset) is published at Data sources. Primary sources include CDC PLACES, CDC WONDER, Indiana Management Performance Hub, SAMHSA, HRSA (HPSA designations), BLS Occupational Employment Statistics, County Health Rankings, and the Lightcast behavioral-health workforce extract.

How the findings are derived

In plain terms: we compare Hamilton County against its four neighbor counties and against a 292-county national benchmark set, look for relationships that hold up across the set, and report them with the direction and strength of the relationship. For example, the Capacity & Access dashboard compares each county's population-per-provider ratio against its suicide rate; the Policy Lever Simulator models an aggregate Hamilton County population against published behavioral-health cost and outcome benchmarks. We report what the data shows and, where a finding is directional rather than conclusive, we say so.

Privacy commitment (no PHI)

Invest Hamilton County does not collect, store, or transmit Protected Health Information (PHI). Every metric on these dashboards is aggregated to the city-band level or coarser, with a minimum-cell-size suppression rule so no individual can ever be identified. We never publish per-person, per-household, per-employer, or per-case data, regardless of query. This dashboard is a public-benefit analytical resource, not a clinical system. Full data posture: /about/data-posture.

The models behind the tools

The ROI and policy-simulation tools run on Invest Hamilton County's proprietary behavioral-health methodology. The tools are free for anyone in Hamilton County to use, and every result cites the public benchmarks it rests on. The detailed model internals (the exact coefficients, weightings, and derivations) are Invest Hamilton County intellectual property, available to partner organizations under license. If you need the full technical methodology for research or replication, contact mthibideau@investhamiltoncounty.com.