 |
The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
|
The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Louise Celine Quesada, MPH, Planning and Information, City of Saint Louis Department of Health, 634 North Grand Ave, Saint Louis, MO 63103, 314/612-5127, planning1@aol.com, Ann Mertens, PhD, Departments of Pediatrics and Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, 2301 2nd Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55455, and Allan Halfar, MHA, HealthMap, Inc., 16 Manhattan Mews, Suite 2300, Saint Louis, MO 63108.
Public Health agencies are operating in an environment of scarce resources. This reality requires that Health Departments identify their most important public health issues along with the populations most affected by these problems. A needs assessment is conducted to develop policy and prioritize the allocation of limited resources. County level data is not specific enough to identify the populations of most need and where they reside. This needs assessment, conducted for the City of Saint Louis (population approximately 348,000 with 18 full and 10 partial Zip codes), identified 63 different variables that could readily be obtained at the Zip code level from secondary data sources. The assessment looked at a wide range of indicators that affect the health of a population. These include Demographic (e.g., population changes, age cohorts, refugees and racial polarization), Socioeconomic (e.g., average household income, unemployment and crime rates and vacant lot ratios), Quality/Access (e.g., primary care physicians, emergency room visits and out-of-wedlock births), Epidemics (e.g., HIV/AIDS and TB rates), Environmental (e.g., lead poisoning and asthma rates), Injury (e.g., accident rates), and Behavior (e.g., mortality rates). Data were collected for the majority of indicators for a five year time period (1994-1998). The same data were collected, for comparative purposes, for the City of Saint Louis, Missouri the U.S. and race (African American and White). Tables, graphs, maps and narrative are used to describe each variable. An overall summary rating for each Zip code was developed that allowed a ranking of the best to those of most concern.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Needs Assessment,
Related Web page: stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/health/
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: City of Saint Louis Department of Health
Saint Louis, Missouri
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.