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Health Survey Seeks to Stem Growing Rates of
Chronic Disease in New Haven
Jeannette Ickovics |
In the second stage of a long-term effort to reverse worsening rates of chronic disease in New Haven, residents of six city neighborhoods will be surveyed about their current health and health habits.
Starting this week and lasting through November, approximately 1,400 adults in the city’s Dixwell, West River/Dwight, Fair Haven, Hill North, Newhallville and West Rock neighborhoods will be interviewed about their health issues, including access to health care, diet, exercise, tobacco use and neighborhood environment.
This information will be combined with data from health maps completed this summer of the same six neighborhoods. The findings will be used to develop policy proposals and health programs to curb obesity, smoking, diabetes and other factors that contribute to the onset of chronic disease. New Haven, like other urban centers, disproportionately bears the burden of chronic disease. Such diseases account for 70 percent of all illness and death in the United States and 75 percent of health care costs—yet they are totally preventable.
“Everyone is crucial to this effort,” Jeannette Ickovics, Ph.D., a professor at the Yale School of Public Health, said during a press conference that launched the project’s second phase. Ickovics also is director of CARE: Community Alliance for Research and Engagement at Yale, which is spearheading the study. “Together we can work to do extraordinary things.”
A dozen interviewers clad in bright orange jackets and trained to administer the surveys will fan out in the six neighborhoods. The interviews are expected to take about 30 minutes and each participant will receive a $10 gift card to a local grocery and be eligible for a $500 cash prize. All information gathered is confidential. The findings are expected to be ready by Easter.
William Quinn, M.P.H. ’75, director of the New Haven Health Department, said that the survey would give city residents who are not often heard from a voice. “What you [CARE] are doing is extremely important,” he said. “It’s our job to come up with solutions and to change policy. I assure you that will be done.”
Recent evidence suggests that comprehensive health interventions are an important approach to improving community health and can result in successful outcomes. “The surveys will help to lay a crucial foundation for improving health, neighborhood by neighborhood,” said Ickovics.
The New Haven project is part of a larger initiative known as Community Interventions for Health, which seeks to further scientific knowledge about the effectiveness of community interventions. In addition to New Haven (the first U.S. city to participate in the program) similar studies are underway in Mexico, China, India and the United Kingdom.
~Story by Michael Greenwood
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