This data tool is a way to share the information the Minnesota Department of Health collects with the public, researchers, and other health agencies in the state. This interactive tool allows you to see detailed estimates from the survey, and create data tables comparing two years of data. You will be able to create customized tables and download them in pdf or excel format. In addition, the system can tell you if any of the estimates are significantly different from each other through statistical t-tests.

What data is available in the Minnesota Health Access Survey Interactive Data Tool?

Years available: Currently, the system includes data from the 2001, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017 surveys.

Types of information available: This system can be used to generate a variety of detailed statistics and comparisons. These include:

Uninsurance Rates: Percent of Minnesotans who are uninsured by age, race/ethnicity, income and other population characteristics.
Sources of Health Insurance Coverage: Percent of Minnesotans with employer coverage, individually purchased coverage, public coverage or who are uninsured.
Access to Employer Coverage for the Non-Elderly: For example, the percent of non-elderly who work for or have a family member who works for an employer that offers health insurance benefits.
Demographic Characteristics by Usual Source of Care: Age, race/ethnicity, income and other demographic characteristics by whether Minnesotans have a usual source of care.
Demographic Characteristics of the Uninsured: Age, race/ethnicity, income and other demographic characteristics of the uninsured.
Employment Characteristics of the Uninsured: Employment status, employment type, firm size and other employment characteristics of the uninsured.
Potential Sources of Health Insurance Coverage: Percent of uninsured Minnesotans who have potential access to employer or public health insurance coverage.

Which measure of uninsurance is used in the estimates?

Unless otherwise specified, the estimates of health insurance coverage and uninsurance are for the time of the interview (point-in-time estimates). Alternative measures of uninsurance (full-year, part-year or some point during the year) are also available and can be viewed in the interactive data tool by choosing "uninsurance rates" and then selecting the sub-category “alternative measures of uninsurance”.

What does "statistical significance" mean?

Estimates from the Minnesota Health Access Survey, like all survey estimates, are subject to a degree of uncertainty or error. Because the estimates are based on responses from a sample of the population, they may differ from the actual values for the overall population. Therefore, we place a range of values, or confidence intervals, around each estimate. This range is often referred to as the “margin of error.” One estimate that appears to be different from another might actually be within the margin of error for these estimates. In published estimates from the Minnesota Health Access Survey, differences between survey estimates that are marked as “statistically significant” have been determined using statistical t-tests at the 95% confidence level. If a difference between two estimates is not indicated as statistically significant, this means that the difference is not large enough to conclude with 95% confidence that a true difference exists.

Why are some of the estimates shown as double asterisks?

In most of these cases these estimates cannot be computed reliably because the sample was too small.

More Detailed Information on the survey can be found in the 2017 Technical Report.

Other questions? Please contact the Health Economics Program at 651-201-3550 or health.mnha@state.mn.us.

Start using the Survey Data