Use of a population-based survey to describe the health of Boston public housing residents.

OBJECTIVES: We compared the health of public housing residents with other Boston residents through a random-digit-dial survey. METHODS: We used data from the Boston Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System collected in 2001 and 2003 to make crude and demographically adjusted comparisons between public housing residents and other city residents on measures of health status, access and utilization, and health behaviors. RESULTS: Public housing residents were more likely to report fair or poor overall health status, ever-diagnosed hypertension, current asthma, ever-diagnosed diabetes, obesity, disability, loss of 6 or more teeth, and feelings of depression for 15 days or more in the past month. Public housing residents were slightly more likely than others to be without health insurance or report financial barriers to medical care. Public housing residents reported more smoking and physical inactivity, less past-month binge drinking and past-year marijuana use, and similar levels of lifetime drug use. CONCLUSIONS: Public housing residents reported substantially poorer health than did other city residents across a variety of conditions but similar levels of access to and utilization of health care. Public health departments may be able to use established surveys to measure health among public housing residents.

No-cost gym visits are associated with lower weight and blood pressure among non-Latino black and Latino participants with a diagnosis of hypertension in a multi-site demonstration project.

Well documented, persistent racial/ethnic health disparities in obesity and hypertension in the US demonstrate the continued need for interventions that focus on people of color who may be at higher risk. We evaluated a demonstration project funded by the CDC's Racial/Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) program at four federally qualified health centers (FQHC) and YMCA fitness and wellness centers in Boston. No-cost YMCA memberships were offered from June 2014 to June 2015 to non-Latino black and Latino adults with a diagnosis of hypertension. YMCA visit data were merged with health data for 224 participants (n = 1265 health center visits). We assessed associations between gym visit frequency and weight, body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) using longitudinal time-varying linear fixed-effects models. The total number of gym visits over the entire program duration was 5.5, while the conditional total number of visits (after the first gym visit has been made) was 17.3. Having visited the gym at least 10 times before an FQHC exam was, on average, associated with lower weight (1.19 kg, p = 0.01), lower BMI (0.43 kg/m2, p = 0.01) and reductions in SBP (-3.20 mm Hg, p = 0.01) and DBP (-2.06 mm Hg p = 0.01). Having visited the gym an average of 1.4 times per month (study average) was associated with reductions in weight, BMI, and DBP. No-cost gym visits were associated with improved weight and blood pressure in hypertensive non-Latino black and Latino adults in this program. Additional evaluation is necessary to assess the sustainability of these effects.