Is There a Difference Between Regionally-Estimated BRFSS Health Indicators and those Calculated through Community Health Assessments led by County Health Departments?
Date
2016-05
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Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
Community Health Assessments (CHAs) have been emphasized in recent years due to changes in accreditation and funding standards after the 2011 passing of the Affordable Care Act. Local health departments (LHDs) often adapt methodologies from The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) in their primary data collection. As BRFSS moves to provide more locality-specific estimates and low-resource LHDs are required to collect primary data, it is necessary to determine whether BRFSS regional estimates could be a sound substitute for CHA-collected data. This study aims to determine if a difference exists between health indicators that are calculated through Ohio BRFSS regional-estimates and those calculated through CHAs led by 3 county health departments. Using two-sample z-tests, percent prevalence of chronic illness, as reported in each county’s CHA, was compared to its respective BRFSS regional estimate. 6 (27.3%) of the indicators were found to be statistically significantly different. Each county had 2 indicators that were statistically different from the regional estimate; no specific chronic illness was found to statistically significant in more than one county/regional comparison. Although the majority of indicators were statistically insignificant, further research must be done in order to fully understand the potential overlap between BRFSS regional estimates in CHA data. More transparency and collaboration in locality-specific data is needed, especially in low-resource, rural settings.
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Keywords
Community Health Assessments, BRFSS, Health Indicators