In:
BMC Public Health, Springer Science and Business Media LLC, Vol. 23, No. 1 ( 2023-01-27)
Abstract:
Local governments and other public health entities often need population health measures at the county or subcounty level for activities such as resource allocation and targeting public health interventions, among others. Information collected via national surveys alone cannot fill these needs. We propose a novel, two-step method for rescaling health survey data and creating small area estimates (SAEs) of smoking rates using a Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey administered in 2015 to participants living in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA. Methods The first step consisted of a spatial microsimulation to rescale location of survey respondents from zip codes to tracts based on census population distributions by age, sex, race, and education. The rescaling allowed us, in the second step, to utilize available census tract-specific ancillary data on social vulnerability for small area estimation of local health risk using an area-level version of a logistic linear mixed model. To demonstrate this new two-step algorithm, we estimated the ever-smoking rate for the census tracts of Allegheny County. Results The ever-smoking rate was above 70% for two census tracts to the southeast of the city of Pittsburgh. Several tracts in the southern and eastern sections of Pittsburgh also had relatively high ( 〉 65%) ever-smoking rates. Conclusions These SAEs may be used in local public health efforts to target interventions and educational resources aimed at reducing cigarette smoking. Further, our new two-step methodology may be extended to small area estimation for other locations and health outcomes.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1471-2458
DOI:
10.1186/s12889-022-14970-4
Language:
English
Publisher:
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Publication Date:
2023
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2041338-5
