Ami M. Shah ^1*, Steven Whitman ², Abigail Silva ¹

¹ Sinai Health System
² Mount Sinai Hospital

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: shaam{at}sinai.org.

	Abstract

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 (18-75 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.

Key Words: Community Health, Epidemiology, Public Health Practice, Surveys, Urban Health