Comparing methods of performing geographically targeted rural health surveillance.

Background: Worsening socioeconomic conditions in rural America have been fueling increases in chronic disease and poor health. The goal of this study was to identify cost-effective methods of deploying geographically targeted health surveys in rural areas, which often have limited resources. These health surveys were administered in New York's rural Sullivan County, which has some of the poorest health outcomes in the entire state.

Age Disparities Among Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Associated Rates of Hospital Use and Diabetic Complications.

Introduction: Although screening for diabetes is recommended at age 45, some populations may be at greater risk at earlier ages. Our objective was to quantify age disparities among patients with type 2 diabetes in New York City.

Methods: Using all-payer hospital claims data for New York City, we performed a cross-sectional analysis of patients with type 2 diabetes identified from emergency department visits during the 5-year period 2011-2015.

Identifying Geographic Disparities in Diabetes Prevalence Among Adults and Children Using Emergency Claims Data.

Geographic surveillance can identify hotspots of disease and reveal associations between health and the environment. Our study used emergency department surveillance to investigate geographic disparities in type 1 and type 2 diabetes prevalence among adults and children. Using all-payer emergency claims data from 2009 to 2013, we identified unique New York City residents with diabetes and geocoded their location using home addresses.

Using Geospatial Analysis and Emergency Claims Data to Improve Minority Health Surveillance.

Traditional methods of health surveillance often under-represent racial and ethnic minorities. Our objective was to use geospatial analysis and emergency claims data to estimate local chronic disease prevalence separately for specific racial and ethnic groups. We also performed a regression analysis to identify associations between median household income and local disease prevalence among Black, Hispanic, Asian, and White adults in New York City.

Assessing the Reliability of Performing Citywide Chronic Disease Surveillance Using Emergency Department Data from Sentinel Hospitals.

Given the inequalities in the distribution of disease burden, geographically detailed methods of disease surveillance are needed to identify local hot spots of chronic disease. However, few data sources include the patient-level addresses needed to perform these studies. Given that individual hospitals would have access to this geographically granular data, this study assessed the reliability of estimating chronic disease prevalence using emergency department surveillance at specific hospitals.