Welcome to Community Health Data Base

Since 1983, PHMC’s Community Health Data Base (CHDB) has provided local health and wellbeing data to assist health and human service providers across the Southeastern Pennsylvania (SEPA) region assess community need, conduct advocacy, plan and develop programs, and guide policy decisions. The CHDB staff are excited to release data from the 2012 Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey!

The Household Health Survey is one of the largest local health surveys in the county and has been conducted every other year since 1994, making it a unique resource in this region. The survey provides timely information on more than 13,000 residents—children and adults—living in the five county SEPA region of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia. This comprehensive survey supplies information on a broad range of topics such as health status and chronic health conditions, access to care, health behaviors, health screenings, and older adult social support needs. These data are available at the neighborhood, county, and regional level.

Core health indicators such as insurance status and cigarette smoking have been collected in the survey overtime, allowing for the tracking of trends. However, in response to changes in health and healthcare, both locally and nationally, new questions were added to the 2012 Household Health Survey. (For a full listing of questions added to the 2012 survey, please see the January 2013 Data Findings piece: http://www.chdbdata.org/datafindings-details.asp?id=108.) Also new to the 2012 survey, we doubled the number of interviews taking place on cell phones. More than 2,000 interviews were conducted by cell phone for the 2012 survey, whereas 1,000 interviews were conducted by cell phone for the 2010 survey. Increasing the number of interviews taking place via cell phones further enhances our ability to reach area residents.

The following presents selected findings from the 2012 Household Health Survey about the health and wellbeing of SEPA residents, including some of our core health indicators as well as new health indicators added to the survey.

SELECTED CORE HEALTH INDICATORS

Insurance Status

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that more than one in six Americans under 65 years of age (17.9%) is without health insurance coverage, representing 47.9 million people in the U.S.*
In the SEPA region, 12.4% of adults 18-64 years of age and 3.3% of children under 18 years of age are without health insurance coverage (Figure 1).
Among adults under 65 years of age in our region, certain segments of the population are more likely to be without health insurance. Consistent with national trends, in SEPA, young adults ages 18-39 years are more likely to be without health insurance (18.2%) than any other age group (40-49 years: 9.8%; 50-59 years: 8.2%; and 60-64 years: 5.1%). Additionally, Latino adults (26.2%) are more likely to be uninsured than their Black (19.0%), Asian, (14.7%), and White (7.5%) counterparts.

Cigarette Smoking

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nationally, nearly one-fifth of adults (19.3%) smoke cigarettes.#
In the SEPA region, 18.3% of adults smoke cigarettes, representing more than 572,800 adults.
Both of these percentages have not met the Healthy People 2020 target goal of 12.0%.

SELECTED NEW HEALTH INDICATORS

Adapting to changes in health issues, the addition of timely topics keeps the Household Health Survey dynamic and responsive. Below are selected findings from the new topic areas added to the 2012 survey.

Walk-in Retail Clinics

With a growing number of retail walk-in clinics popping up across the county, the 2012 survey included a question to assess whether adults have used such clinics within the past year.
In SEPA, 7.5% of adults have received healthcare services from a retail clinic within the past year, representing more than 235,000 adults.

Perceptions of Cigarette Smoke

In addition to the battery of smoking-related information collected as part of the survey’s core set of questions, a new question was added to the 2012 survey to understand adults’ perceptions as to whether smoke from other people’s cigarettes is harmful to them.
In SEPA, more than one in ten adults (10.5%) feel that smoke from other people’s cigarettes is not harmful to them.
Additionally, adults who smoke cigarettes (23.6%) are more than three times as likely as adults who do not smoke cigarettes (7.6%) to feel that smoke from other people’s cigarettes is not harmful to them.

Adults’ Sedentary Lifestyle Behaviors

With a wider selection of personal gadgetry available, there continues to be much attention paid to sedentary lifestyle behaviors in the U.S. In addition to containing questions about physical activity, the 2012 Household Health Survey was used to gauge the average number of hours that adults, on a typical day, watched TV as well as used computers during their leisure time within the past month.
In SEPA, 12.2% of adults watch less than 1 hour of TV, or do not watch it at all; 41.5% of adults watch between 1 and 2 hours of TV; and 46.2% of adults watch 3 or more hours of TV during their leisure time (Figure 2).
In SEPA, 42.4% of adults use a computer less than 1 hour, or do not use one at all; 36.3% of adults use a computer between 1 and 2 hours; and 21.3% of adults use a computer 3 or more hours during their leisure time.

Children’s Sedentary Lifestyle Behaviors

Similar to the adult portion of the survey, the child survey included two questions about the average number of hours that on a typical day children ages 3 or older watched TV and used a computer outside of their school work in the past month.
In SEPA, 15.7% of children watch less than 1 hour of TV, or do not watch it at all; 55.4% of children watch between 1 and 2 hours of TV; and 28.9% of children watch 3 or more hours of TV (Figure 2).
Additionally, in SEPA, 40.2% of children use a computer less than 1 hour, or do not use one at all; 43.8% of children use a computer between 1 and 2 hours; and 16.0% of children use a computer 3 or more hours outside of their schoolwork.

Early Education

The 2012 survey included a question to estimate the average number of hours that children ages 5 or younger spend per week in an early education setting.
In SEPA, one half of children (50.3%) do not spend any time in an early education setting; however, 17.3% of children spend between 1 and 9 hours; 8.7% of children spend between 10 and 20 hours; 11.7% of children spend between 21 and 39 hours; and 12.0% of children spend 40 or more hours in an early education setting.

Children’s Safety in Community

With children’s safety on the minds of many parents and caregivers, the 2012 survey included a question to assess how often caregivers feel children are safe in their community or neighborhood.
While the majority of children in SEPA are perceived to be generally safe in their communities (91.7%), 8.3% of children are perceived to be never or rarely safe in their communities, representing 64,200 children in our region.

Citations:

* DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-243, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2012. Available at: http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf

# The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking & Tobacco Use: Adult Cigarette Smoking in the United States: Current Estimate. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm

For more information about the findings in this article, please contact Nicole Dreisbach at nicoled@phmc.org.

To download a PDF version of this article, please click here.

To read other Data Findings posted on the CHDB website, please visit:

http://www.chdbdata.org/datafindings.asp