© 2006 American Public Health Association DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2004.052076
The authors are with the Sinai Urban Health Institute, Chicago, Ill. Steven Whitman is also with the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Ami M. Shah, MPH, Sinai Urban Health Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, 1500 S California Ave, Room K-439, Chicago, IL 60608 (e-mail: suhi{at}sinai.org).
Objectives. Although local-level chronic disease and risk factor data are not typically available, they are valuable for guiding public health interventions and policies. To present a case for disaggregated community-level health data, we conducted a study exploring the relevance of such data to research on health disparities. Methods. We designed a population-based health survey to gather information on many health measures, 13 of which are presented here. Interviews were conducted with 1699 adults (1875 years) in 6 Chicago community areas between September 2002 and April 2003. Results. Statistically significant variations in health measures were found between the 6 communities themselves (108 of 195 pairwise comparisons were significant) and between the communities and Chicago as a whole (35 of 54 comparisons were significant). Conclusions. The local-level variations in health revealed in this study emphasize that geographic and racial/ethnic health disparities are still prominent in Chicago and shed light on the limitations of existing city- and regional-level data.
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