Capturx Turning Ink into Action

New Hampshire Union Leader

Obesity ranked top health concern in survey
Working together: Plan will set goals for community improvement.

By DENIS PAISTE NASHUA — Obesity was the top concern of Nashua residents in a health assessment conducted last fall and presented Tuesday at Nashua Community College. Ashley Conley, epidemiologist for the city of Nashua, said, “Having our key leaders say this, having our medical providers say this and then our residents — 15 percent of residents identified that as what they thought was the top health issue — I think we’re all on the same page in saying that if we work together to try and improve this, I think it’s a topic that everybody is interested in.” The next step is to develop a community improvement plan in the fall. The plan will set specific goals the community can reach.

“With obesity we can work with our partner organizations to improve exercise, nutrition classes, things like that, in the clinical setting we can speak to our patients, and we can have programs that really address obesity at that level,” Dr. Debbie Daniels, medical director for the Nashua Public Health and Community Service division, said.

The Nashua findings mirror a state Health Profile released in March that found obesity increased among high school students from 9.9 percent in 2003 to 12.4 percent in 2009.

“If you can make a change or make an impact on obesity, you’re going to affect many other parts, so people with asthma, people with diabetes, heart disease, you affect this and you are going to affect their quality of life overall,” Conley said. “This is one of those health issues, that if you tackle that, you are going to make health improvements everyplace else,” she said. State Director of Public Health Dr. Jose Montero said, “I need to congratulate Nashua.They did a really great job. They are using new methodologies to do this survey in ways that are valid.” Montero noted the survey has a dual purpose of examining both public health and emergency preparedness.

The survey also found that 94 percent of Nashua residents would evacuate in an emergency. “It’s good to see that the Nashua community understands that there is a need to do (that) at some point,” he said. Four out of five residents said Nashua folks are healthy or somewhat healthy. “To our residents, we’re not doing too bad,” Conley said. Asked what one issue to fix to make Nashua a healthier place to live, residents split with no more than one in five choosing any particular answer. The question was openended rather than multiple choice, so the survey grouped similar answers together.

Highest, at 18 percent, was health care access and insurance, followed by “Don’t Know” at 17 percent; environmental health, 16 percent; physical exercise, nutrition and weight, 15 percent; substance abuse, 7 percent; and child health, 7 percent.

Following the survey, two different focus groups, made up of key leaders and medical providers, met to go over the results. “The top issue from both groups was obesity and weight management or unhealthy behaviors,” Conley said. “Both mentioned that there are agencies working on this ... but a lot of times is not necessarily a coordinated effort,” she said.

The door-to-door survey of 207 Nashua residents was the first in the state to use the Center for Disease Control’s Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) technique.

The randomized survey conducted seven interviews each in 30 different neighborhoods of the city, asking each participant 34 questions on a variety of topics.

More than 60 volunteers conducted the surveys on Oct. 23 and Nov. 6. Questions covered infectious diseases, chronic diseases, maternal and child health, screenings for cancer, mental health, and more.

The volunteers used Anoto smart pens to record survey responses in the field. The pens connect to a computer using Adapx’s Capturx software to transfer data to Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and ESRI’s ArcGIS mapping software to transfer geographic information. A final version of the report is due out next month.

Nashua Mayor Donnalee Lozeau said the Health Assessment was a collaborative effort. “We all come together, we all pitch in and we know that our best work is done when we do that,” Lozeau said. “Our group, the key leader group, that I got to participate in, really quickly focused on obesity,” Lozeau said. “We’re looking at moving forward with what can we do around that with community leaders and getting the schools involved and see if we can maybe take a little different approach to that.” Nashua’s 86,000 residents are a diverse group, about 86 percent white, with 7.8 percent Hispanic or Latino residents, and 49 different languages spoken at home by children in the public schools.

The combination of survey and geographic data allows public health officials to look at overlap between poverty and pre-1950s housing, which has a higher risk of childhood lead poisoning.

Copyright © 2011 Union Leader Corporation. All rights reserved. 06/30/2011