First breakdown of public health data for Cleveland neighborhoods

Data briefs from Case Western Reserve detail obesity, hypertension, and diabetes prevalence

2012-03-01

(Press-News.org) Today, the Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods of Case Western Reserve University release new health data from Cleveland neighborhood groups on three of the most pressing public health concerns: obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.

The three data briefs – statistical public health publications – group Cleveland neighborhoods and provide prevalence estimates for diabetes, hypertension awareness and obesity using five years of local survey data. Previously, these measures were only available for the city of Cleveland.

"This data allow the local public health community to measure chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure down to the neighborhood level. We are committed to ongoing data collection to show how 'place matters' – where you live makes a difference," says Elaine Borawski, PhD, the Angela Bowen Williamson Professorship in Community Nutrition at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, primary investigator and co-director of the PRCHN at Case Western Reserve University, and co-author of the data briefs. "Most important, we now have a tool to examine how local initiatives to prevent and reduce chronic disease in our community can be shown to be effective." Dr. Borawski's co-author was David Bruckman, MS, PhD candidate in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the School of Medicine and core faculty, PRCHN of Case Western Reserve University. He also serves as the biostatistician for the City of Cleveland Department of Public Health.

This new research reveals trends and differences by neighborhood group, age, race and sex among Cleveland adults. The local survey data comes from the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) collected from 2005 through 2009.

"These very compelling data briefs illuminate the impact of race and place on health disparities related to the burden of diabetes, hypertension and obesity in Greater Cleveland," says Terry Allan, MPH, health commissioner, Cuyahoga County Board of Health. "They offer the opportunity to focus increasingly precious resources on community programs and academic research initiatives to reduce this unacceptable gap."

New findings detailed in the data briefs include: Overall, the highest levels of hypertension, diabetes and obesity were consistently found in the city's southeast neighborhoods, which include South Broadway, Union-Miles, Corlett, Mt. Pleasant and Lee-Miles. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a highly prevalent chronic disease among Cleveland adults and far higher than elsewhere in the state or the nation. Nearly 70 percent of Cleveland's older adults reported being diagnosed with hypertension. From 2005 through 2009, hypertension was reported more often in Cleveland black adults than among Cleveland white adults (40.8 versus 32.9 percent). However, the disease's prevalence increased significantly in 2008-2009 among Cleveland white adults. High blood pressure awareness prevalence did not change significantly among black Cleveland adults in 2008-2009 compared to 2005-2007. Throughout the survey time span, hypertension prevalence was highest among residents in southeast Cleveland (South Broadway, Union-Miles, Corlett, Mt. Pleasant and Lee-Miles) that among west and southwest Cleveland residents, which includes Cleveland neighborhoods from Riverside and Kamm's Corners to Old Brooklyn and Brooklyn-Center. The percent of obese Cleveland adults was greatest among those 30-49, females and black. Obesity prevalence was highest among adults living in southeast neighborhoods. Diabetes prevalence is most common among Cleveland adults age 65 years and older; one in four survey respondents said they were told that he/she has diabetes by a health professional at some time during the survey period. Diabetes is as common among Cleveland females as males and between white and black Cleveland adults. The percent of adults with diabetes did not differ across the seven Cleveland neighborhood groups.

"The collection and analysis of this critical information will help to inform and guide the City of Cleveland's public health policies and strategies. It will also serve as an important assessment tool for the Healthy Cleveland Initiative," says Karen K. Butler, director of public health, City of Cleveland.

Seven groups of Cleveland neighborhoods are included in the data briefs: East (Downtown, Central, Goodrich-Kirtland Park, St. Clair-Superior, Fairfax, Hough, and University); Northeast (Glenville, Forest Hills, North and South Collinwood, and Euclid-Green); Eastern Corridor (Industrial Valley, North Broadway, Kinsman, Woodland Hills, and Buckeye-Shaker); Southeast (South Broadway, Union-Miles, Corlett, Mt. Pleasant, and Lee-Miles); Northwest (Edgewater, Cudell, Detroit-Shoreway, and Ohio City/Near West Side and Tremont); South/Southwest (West Boulevard, Stockyards, Clark-Fulton, Brooklyn-Center, and Old Brooklyn); and West (Riverside, Puritas-Longmead, Kamms Corner, and Jefferson).

The data briefs use maps, tables and charts to illustrate differences in these conditions by age, sex, race, across study periods 2005-2007 and 2008-2009, and by Cleveland neighborhoods. These three reports continue Case Western Reserve's legacy of providing research-based health information, education, and opportunities for improved well-being to the community. The briefs and more detailed statistical information can be found at http://prchn.org/cleveland-neighborhood-data-br/.

### About Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Founded in 1843, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is the largest medical research institution in Ohio and is among the nation's top medical schools for research funding from the National Institutes of Health. The School of Medicine is recognized throughout the international medical community for outstanding achievements in teaching. The School's innovative and pioneering Western Reserve2 curriculum interweaves four themes--research and scholarship, clinical mastery, leadership, and civic professionalism--to prepare students for the practice of evidence-based medicine in the rapidly changing health care environment of the 21st century. Nine Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the school of medicine.

Annually, the School of Medicine trains more than 800 MD and MD/PhD students and ranks in the top 25 among U.S. research-oriented medical schools as designated by U.S. News & World Report "Guide to Graduate Education."

The School of Medicine's primary affiliate is University Hospitals Case Medical Center and is additionally affiliated with MetroHealth Medical Center, the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic, with which it established the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in 2002. http://casemed.case.edu.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

China's urbanization unlikely to lead to fast growth of middle class: UW geographer

2012-03-01

The number of people living in China's cities, which last year for the first time surpassed 50 percent of the national population, is considered a boon for the consumer goods market. That is based on the assumption that there will be more families with more disposable income when poor farmers from China's countryside move to cities and become middle-class industrial and office workers. But the assumption overlooks a policy from the era of Chinese leader Mao Zedong that restricts the upward mobility of its rural citizens, says a University of Washington geographer. This ...

A 2-pronged attack: Why loss of STAT1 is bad news

2012-03-01

The so-called signal transducers and activators of transcription (STATs) are involved in the regulation of cell division but details of their functions remain a matter of conjecture. In the development of breast cancer, the role of STAT1 is particularly interesting as high levels of STAT1 activity are known to be correlated with a better prognosis for breast cancer patients. There is a considerable body of evidence that STAT1 can act to suppress tumour growth in breast cancer but how does it function? Important clues are provided by the latest results of Christine Schneckenleithner ...

Inherited epigenetics produced record fast evolution

2012-03-01

The domestication of chickens has given rise to rapid and extensive changes in genome function. A research team at Linköping University in Sweden has established that the changes are heritable, although they do not affect the DNA structure. Humans kept Red Junglefowl as livestock about 8000 years ago. Evolutionarily speaking, the sudden emergence of an enormous variety of domestic fowl of different colours, shapes and sizes has occurred in record time. The traditional Darwinian explanation is that over thousands of years, people have bred properties that have arisen through ...

Understanding Your Children's Changing Needs When Creating a Virginia Child Custody Agreement

2012-03-01

Child custody agreements are useful in helping parents define their roles as caretakers and reach compromises about raising their children, ensuring that children's needs are met and that they are consistently cared for to the satisfaction of both parents. When issues arise, child custody agreements can help parents resolve them. Virginia child custody and/or visitation agreements are tools in the parenting process and they do have limitations. Even with clearly defined agreements, parents can face challenges with co-parents as they balance their roles in their children's ...

Legal Protections Against Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace

2012-03-01

A business executive is passed over for an important assignment after she announces her pregnancy. A single mother is verbally harassed by co-workers about her pregnancy. A waitress is denied extra rest breaks medically needed to help keep her pregnancy-induced high blood pressure under control. An office worker is hired, but the employer changes its mind after finding out she is expecting. All of these situations constitute potentially illegal pregnancy discrimination under federal employment law, and under the discrimination laws of most states. Unfortunately, these ...

Young people face double penalty in a slow job market

2012-03-01

The latest official unemployment figures show that unemployment among young people has soared to 22.3 per cent, higher than the recession of the 1990s, while the overall unemployment rate is nine per cent. New research from Understanding Society, a study of more than 40,000 UK households, has examined what is driving this uneven employment pattern and finds that young people suffer from a 'double-penalty' in their attempts to find and keep a job. The rise in youth unemployment figures is due to young people being more likely than older workers to be laid off, thus swelling ...

Social Host Law Hold Adults Liable for Teen Drinking

2012-03-01

In 1996, following a graduation party in Massachusetts, an 18-year old boy was involved in a fatal car accident after the car he was driving slammed into a telephone pole. At the time of the accident, the boy's blood alcohol content (BAC) was twice the legal limit for adults of .08. An adult hosted the graduation party, though the adult did not provide the alcohol directly to the minor. And because he did not directly provide the alcohol, the host was acquitted of any wrongdoing. While it was a tragedy, the teenager's death and the subsequent acquittal of the party ...

New test can better predict successful IVF embryos, scientists say

2012-03-01

Scientists at University College Dublin have discovered a new way of measuring the potential success rate of an embryo before it is transferred back into the womb during in vitro fertilisation (IVF). According to the findings published online in the journal Fertility and Sterility, the fluid within a woman's ovaries that surrounds the egg or oocyte holds metabolic information that can improve predictions on which embryo is more likely to lead to pregnancy. "We analysed samples of the follicular fluid surrounding the immature ovum or egg before it was retrieved for IVF," ...

Workforce from the digital cloud

2012-03-01

By means of cloud computing, enterprises can access scalable computing power and storage capacity. A people cloud, by contrast, supplies a scalable number of workers via the internet. It is used when non-automated tasks are executed, such as allocating images, searching information, or writing texts. The challenge is to maintain the quality of the work results on a constant high level. Now, this is achieved by a quality management system developed by KIT. Also in times of constantly increasing computing power, people are indispensable for executing certain tasks. Such ...

Research finds bullies and victims 3 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts by age 11

2012-03-01

Children involved in bullying – as both a victim and a bully – are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts by the time they reach 11 years old, according to research from the University of Warwick. In a paper published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the researchers found children who are both victims and bullies ('bully-victims'), are at highly increased risk of considering suicide, or have planned and engaged in suicidal or self-harming behaviour by 11-12 years of age. These increased odds were ...

First breakdown of public health data for Cleveland neighborhoods

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: