142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

306602
Neighborhood data for health: Using “healthography” to develop place-based public health indicators

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Pamela Stoddard, PhD , Public Health Department, Santa Clara County, San Jose, CA
Brianna van Erp, MPH, MPP , Santa Clara County Public Health Department, San Jose, CA
Mandeep Baath, MPH , Public Health Department, Santa Clara County, San Jose, CA
Kate Kelsey, MPH , Department of Public Health, Santa Clara County, San Jose, CA
Roshni Shah, MPH , Santa Clara County Public Health Department, San Jose, CA
Anandi Sujeer, MPH , Public Health Department, Santa Clara County, San Jose, CA
Douglas Schenk , Information Services, Santa Clara County, San Jose, CA
Bill Shoe, MCRP , Planning Office, Santa Clara County, San Jose, CA
Greg Bazhaw , Planning Office, Santa Clara County, San Jose, CA
Whitney Webber, MS , Epidemiology & Data Management Unit, Santa Clara County Public Health Department, San Jose, CA
Based on a growing understanding that how and where people live affects their health and well-being, local public health agencies are increasingly designing place-based interventions which require data for small geographic areas. As a result, many city and county agencies have begun to develop ways to provide access to neighborhood-level data. This is especially challenging in many cities in California where historically, established neighborhood identities and boundaries often do not exist. We describe a unique collaboration between public health, information services, and planning departments in Santa Clara County, California, to define neighborhood boundaries as a first step in producing neighborhood profiles. The partnership organized all census tracts in the county into more than 100 neighborhoods in 15 cities. We will describe criteria that guided boundary definition and lessons learned from engaging city planners and others in approving boundaries.

Due to a large number of indicators and datasets, data management issues have impacted neighborhood profile projects in other jurisdictions, particularly the capacity to update data regularly. We will describe how we worked with stakeholders to select a limited number of the most meaningful socio-demographic, environmental, and health indicators and detail how lessons learned from other neighborhood profiles influenced the design of this project. This included (a) selecting multiple online formats to provide data by neighborhood and to enable comparison of indicators across neighborhoods; (b) automating analysis to streamline data management, updating, and quality assurance; (c) developing an online, searchable map for locating neighborhood profiles by address; and (d) developing dissemination strategies to support independent use. We will also describe how the profiles have been used by stakeholders to investigate health inequities at the neighborhood level and to select neighborhoods for intervention.

Learning Areas:

Epidemiology
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related public policy
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Describe process of working with county and city agencies to develop indicators and neighborhood boundaries. Explain how smaller area analysis is useful in order to better understand inequities and target interventions.

Keyword(s): Health Disparities/Inequities, Community Health Assessment

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am an epidemiologist with graduate training in public health and public policy. My work has primarily focused on chronic disease prevention and social determinants of health. I was involved in all phases of the neighborhood profile project.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.