Socialepi-readings-week7-Oakes 2009 - Improving Community Health for BYI- FINAL

8/13/2019 Socialepi-readings-week7-Oakes 2009 - Improving Community Health for BYI- FINAL

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Community Health Interventions:

A review of research relevant to Allina Health Systems Backyard Initiative

21 December 2009

J. Michael Oakes, PhDMcKnight Presidential Fellow

Associate ProfessorDivision of Epidemiology & Community Health

Minnesota Population CenterUniversity of Minnesota

[email protected]


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY`

This report summarizes scientific research relevant to Allina Health Systems

Backyard Initiative (BYI). The BYI is an effort to galvanize a coalition of community

residents and community-based, government, education and healthcare organizations

towards improving the health and healthcare of residents in Allinas backyard, defined as

persons residing within approximately one mile of Allinas corporate headquarters,

Abbott Northwestern Hospital and the Phillips Eye Institute. Motivated by the

recognition that a new model of disease prevention and healthcare is needed, Allinas

BYI represents a novel attempt to extend traditional healthcare beyond the walls of

clinics and hospitals and into a geographically bounded community.

Announced in May 2008, the BYI began with Allina engaging communitystakeholders in structured and informal conversation. Many issues and action ideas were

discussed and debated. The work resulted in the following four BYI focus

areas/interventions being identified: (1) engaging communities/building bridges, (2)

primary and secondary prevention, (3) improving care access and (4) early childhood

education.

The goal of this document is to summarize the scientific support for the focus

areas and to provide a scientific rationale for the BYI efforts. This review is centered on

peer-reviewed research papers and published summaries that address the health benefits

associated with the BYIs focus areas/intervention. Special attention is given to

experimental studies. Recall that in this context experimental studies are those in which a

health intervention is randomly assigned to persons or groups. Such studies are especially

important for community health initiatives because they help researchers disentangle the

impacts of the interventions under investigation from the background characteristics and

natural health trajectories of residents. While not without limitations, experiments may

accordingly be viewed as the relative gold standard of scientific evidence. The research

presented here was selected from works identified in electronic databases, bibliographies

of certain key papers and books, and through professional networks. Extensive effort was

devoted to identifying the most careful and neutral reviews and key summaries from the

tens of thousands of potentially relevant works. Note well that the issue of health system

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cost is not considered here. Costs are a separate and perhaps even more complicated

matter than the effects of interventions.

Engaging Community/Building Bridges

No experimental research was found that addressed the health impact of improved

community based organization activity. Related research addressing community

activation to prevent youth alcohol abuse was found to demonstrate negligible to modest

impacts. A great deal of non-experimental research on the impact of community-based

participatory efforts suggest modest health benefits are possible, but this hypothesis,

while promising, remains to be fully tested. In any event, community engagement is

probably the right thing to do.

Primary and Secondary Prevention

In terms of health (actually, disease) screening, there is mixed evidence that early

screening for certain cancers can yield preferred outcomes. Routine screening can detect

cancers of the breast, colon, rectum, cervix, prostate, oral cavity, and skin at early stages.

Yet for most of these cancers early detection has not proven to reduce mortality. What is

more, cancer remains rare for those less than 60 years of age. It follows that the overall

health benefit for a single community is muted.

Evidence of the beneficial effect of primary screening for blood pressure and

obesity is mixed. Efforts to improve community physical activity and/or diets have not

been very successful. Secondary screening after an event, such as a heart attack

suggests stronger potential beneficial impacts.

Too often overlooked, dental and oral health is important to overall health. Many

dentists and hygienists provide scaling and polishing for patients at a regular interval,

even if those patients are thought to be at low risk for developing periodontal disease.

There is debate, however, over the clinical and cost effectiveness of routine scaling and

polishing and the optimal frequency at which it should be provided. The evidence for

preventive dentistry and dental screening for youth is slightly stronger, suggesting it is

worthwhile.

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Improved Care Access

While it may be surprising, the fact is that it is difficult to estimate the health

gains associated with the provision of health insurance, especially for otherwise healthy

people. It is clear that health insurance increases the amount of health care consumed but

it is unclear the degree to which such healthcare consumption actually improves health.

Many studies document that the insured tend to have better health outcomes than the

uninsured. But the magnitude of the causal link between health insurance and better

health has not been definitively established. The reason for this is that ones insurance

coverage is determined by many of the same factors that determine health status to begin

with; that is, socioeconomic status. Absent a randomized trial wherein some needing

health insurance are provided it while insurance is withheld from others, it is difficult to

disentangle these effects. Not only are such experiments extremely expensive but thereare obvious ethical challenges too. The only randomized experiment addressing the

health effects of health insurance is the famous RAND Health Insurance experiment

conducted in the 1970s. The results from this trial showed mixed but probably beneficial

effects.

On the other hand, the provision of health care for the less healthy or already ill

seems both necessary and beneficial. Indeed, while evidence is fragmented and

incomplete, it seems clear that access to care and greater continuity of care for the

chronically ill is associated with less use of hospitals and emergency departments. And

while imperfect, there is good evidence to suggest having health insurance is healthy.

Recent attention to the impact of medical home or related changes to conventional

primary care models has yet to yield sufficient scientific data, but appears promising. End

of life care remains an important and difficult issue.

Early Childhood Education

Throughout history the best predictor of good health outcomes is ones

socioeconomic status, often measured by educational attainment. Indeed, the strong

relationship between education and health is the foundation for research into the social

determinants of health. There is virtual consensus that early life educational interventions

are necessary to mitigate the effects of disadvantage, although research addressing how

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early childhood education affects life chances is vast and complicated. Credible research

finds that for the otherwise disadvantaged, improved early learning confers value on

acquired skills, which leads to self-reinforcing motivation to learn more and early

mastery of a range of cognitive, social and emotional competencies makes learning at

later ages more efficient and therefore easier and more likely to continue. Environments

that do not stimulate the young fail to cultivate these skills and place children at an early

disadvantage. Yet as opposed to academic achievement and some employment gains,

research addressing the effects of early childhood education on health outcomes later is

life is difficult to conduct and there is scant direct evidence. Nevertheless, circumstantial

evidence suggests sustained high-quality early education confers critical advantages and

subsequent positive health effects. Again, this should not be surprising given the strong

and sustained relationship between socioeconomic status (e.g., educational attainment)and health.

Research on home visiting interventions is mixed. In terms of the BYI, an

important study evaluated the impact of a home visiting program to reduce parental risk

factors for child abuse. Unfortunately, the program did not prevent child abuse or

promote use of nonviolent discipline. It had a modest impact in preventing neglect. Home

visitors often failed to recognize parental risks and seldom linked families with

community resources. On the other hand, there is relatively good evidence that home

visiting by nurses can improve birth outcomes among the disadvantaged.

Conclusion

It is important to stress that there is no research that estimates or even considers

the combined effect the four BYI initiatives would have on a given communitys health.

This should not be surprising, the BYI is a novel comprehensive community health

improvement effort. Further, as implied above, a credible evaluation of the BYI initiative

would require enormous resources: ideally, twenty or more communities would be

randomized to the treatment or control conditions, and residents would be followed and

measured for many years to come. Difficult decisions about following persons moving

into and out of target communities would have to be made. Furthermore, decisions about

which health measure (e.g., mortality, cardiovascular health, asthma, anxiety) would be

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required. None of this is within the scope of the action-oriented BYI. Consequently,

stakeholders must look at the research that considers each of the BYI

interventions/components independently.

Overall, there is only modest direct but strong indirect scientific evidence to

support the selection and implementation of Allinas four BYI interventions. Taken

individually, the interventions might be expected to improve the short and long-term

health of certain community members. Taken together, the BYI interventions should be

expected to modestly and meaningfully improve the health of community residents,

especially those at higher risk for disease.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Background ......................................................................................................................... 2

I. Engaging Community/Building Bridges ......................................................................... 5

II. Primary Care and Prevention ......................................................................................... 7

III. The Provision Of Health Insurance............................................................................. 12

IV. Early Childhood Education......................................................................................... 16

V. Home visiting............................................................................................................... 20

VI. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 22

Works Cited ...................................................................................................................... 25

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Background

It is widely known that the United States spends more on health care than another

other nation and yet it ranks relatively poorly with respect to overall measures of health

status such as longevity. Among others, Schroeder (Schroeder 2007) argues that the

paradox is explained by between-country differences in the social determinants of health,

such as tobacco policy and access to quality education, instead of the availability of high-

tech medicine. Shroeder stresses the fact that while inadequate healthcare accounts for

only approximately 10% of premature deaths it receives the lions share of attention and

resources.

It is ironic that in this age of genomics, proteomics and very high-tech medicine,

the key determinant of health remains socioeconomic status (SES), which is typically

measured by educational attainment, income and sometimes occupational prestige. As a

general rule, those of higher SES enjoy better health than those of lower SES. Social

epidemiologists have long shown this relationship to hold over place and time, and to be

graded; that is, for every increment of SES improvement health improves incrementally

too. In other words, the relationship between SES and health is not a step wherein only

those at the lowest level have inferior health, but rather a linear slope with declines along

the way. Recently, the relationship between SES and health has been appreciated by

leading medical scholars (Isaacs and Schroeder 2004; Woolf 2009). The implication isthat in order to improve health of populations, policymakers and/or interventionists must

either (a) improve healthcare for the disadvantaged and/or (b) improve the SES of the

disadvantaged (Oakes and Kaufman 2006).

The relationship between the health of individuals and the health of communities

and larger aggregates, such as states and nations, remains a central question for

researchers working on the social determinants of health. The relationship, of course, is

complicated because while individuals are affected by larger social, political and

macroeconomic forces, they also contribute to them (Macintyre, Ellaway and Cummins

2002; Oakes 2008). What is clear is that impoverished communities pose severe

structural obstacles to human development and good health (Bowles, Durlauf and Hoff

2006; Bowles, Gintis and Groves 2005; Brook et al. 1983; Goering and Feins 2003).

Further, the relationship between exposures and health over the life course is quite

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complex (Pollitt et al. 2008; Turrell et al. 2007). Questions such as What is the effect of

a parent smoking during a childs infancy on that same childs risk of lung cancer later in

life? are very difficult to answer because of intervening trends and factors. Nevertheless,

there is increasing consensus that in order to improve the health of individuals we must

improve the health the communities (i.e., their contexts) too. This means that there is

increasing consensus that the healthcare system must address the social determinants of

health at both the individual and community level.

Allina Health Systems Backyard Initiative (BYI) is an effort to galvanize a

coalition of community residents and community-based, government, education and

healthcare organizations towards improving the health and healthcare of residents in

Allinas backyard, defined as persons residing within approximately one mile of Allinas

corporate headquarters, Abbott Northwestern Hospital and the Phillips Eye Institute.Motivated by the recognition that a new model of disease prevention and healthcare is

needed, Allinas BYI represents a courageous and novel attempt to extend traditional

healthcare beyond the walls of clinics and hospitals and into the community.

Announced in May 2008, the BYI began with Allina engaging community

stakeholders in structured and informal conversation. Many issues and action ideas were

discussed and debated. This work resulted in the following four BYI focus

areas/interventions being identified: engaging communities/building bridges, primary and

secondary prevention, improving access and starting early. Notice, these interventions

aim to improve health by (1) improving healthcare access for the disadvantaged and (2)

increasing a childs SES through early educational interventions. They are also focused

simultaneously on (a) individuals and (b) the whole community.

The goal of this document is to summarize the scientific support for the focus

areas and to provide a scientific rationale for the BYI efforts. This review is centered on

peer-reviewed research papers and published summaries that address the health benefits

associated with the BYIs focus areas/intervention only. Still, it is fair to state that this

document is strikingly, if not foolishly, ambitious. There are literally thousands of

studies, papers and texts on each and every aspect of the interventions discussed here. It

is obviously impossible to know everything about each area much less summarize each

nuance. That stated, it is nevertheless important to compile the information needed into a

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single document so that both area experts and non-experts can benefit from what is

presented and, if they so chose, dig deeper by leveraging the source documents provided.

Special attention is given to experimental studies. Recall that in this context

experimental studies are those in which a health intervention is randomly assigned to

persons or groups. While not without detractors (see Imbens and Wooldridge 2009;

Nathan and Hollister Jr 2008; Sanson-Fisher et al. 2007), such studies are especially

important for community health initiatives because they help researchers disentangle the

impacts of the interventions under investigation from the background characteristics and

natural health trajectories of residents (Hannan 2006; Oakes 2004). Experiments may

accordingly be viewed as the gold standard of scientific evidence (Burtless 1995; Cook

2002).

The research presented here was selected from works identified in electronicdatabases, bibliographies of certain key papers and books, and through professional

networks. Extensive effort was devoted to identifying the most careful and neutral

reviews and key summaries from the tens of thousands of potentially relevant works. It is

worth emphasizing that the issue of health system cost is not considered here. Costs are a

separate and perhaps even more complicated matter than the effects of interventions.

It will be helpful, especially for the less familiar, to understand that the track

record social interventions aiming to improve welfare of any sort is poor. In fact, the late

sociologist and distinguished program evaluator, Peter H. Rossi, stated with regret that

after three decades of research we must appreciate the net measurable effect of any social

intervention should be expected to be nil (Rossi 1987). This Rossis Rule of program

evaluation remains true today. In other words, it has proven extremely difficult to

improve social conditions so as to improve the welfare/health of program/intervention

participants.

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reservation - researchers found little evidence of positive changes in the outcomes

targeted by the 11 intervention communities. The programs that demonstrated positive

outcomes targeted dietary behavior and adolescent substance abuse.

In a related vein, Wagenaar and colleagues (Wagenaar et al. 2000) conducted a

novel experiment in which he endeavored to activate community action in a random set

of communities so as to show the effects on youth alcohol use and abuse. Unlike many

other interventions, Wagenaars intervention aimed to directly motivate community

members to work together toward the common goal -- a collective action problem. While

not definitive or especially strong, these results hold promise for similar work to activate

community members themselves.

A related but clearly distinct approach to community improvement is called

community-based participatory research (CBPR). According to Lantz and colleagues(Lantz et al. 2006), CBPR is an approach to research that consciously blurs the line

between researchers and the researched, or makes research subjects more than mere

objects of research. CBPR is a collaborative approach to research that engages partners

from a community in all phases of the research process, with a shared goal of producing

knowledge that will be translated into action or positive social change for the community.

As Lantz and colleagues reveal, in the realm of public health, CBPR efforts often focus

on improving community health status and/or reducing social disparities in health.

Much of the published literature regarding CBPR involves examples of

intervention research in which a participatory approach was used to identify a community

need or problem, to design an intervention, programmatic or policy response, to evaluate

the intervention, and to make positive community change based on the research results

(Lantz et al. 2006). Examples of intervention research using a CBPR approach include

HIV Testing and Counseling for Latina Women in Los Angeles Seattle Partners adult

vaccine intervention, the Sierra Stanford Partnership in Northern and the Center for

Urban Epidemiological Studies policy research to promote reintegration of drug users

leaving jail in New York City (Lantz et al. 2006).

While clearly gaining popularity, a key question remains: Does CBPR work?

What is the evidence that a participatory approach to public health research is effective

and worthwhile? Since, according to Lantz and colleagues, CBPR is an approach to

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research rather than an intervention in and of itself, this is a challenging question to

attempt to answer. Some could argue that a better question is whether or not CBPR

produces research results that are more likely to meet the long-term goals of creating

interventions that address important community issues, identifying the mechanisms by

which health disparities are created and perpetuated, and enhancing community capacity

to identify and address salient issues on a long-term basis. A growing empirical literature

suggests that this is indeed the case. In a recent evidence-based review of the CBPR

literature related to health sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

(Viswanathan et al. 2004), researchers found evidence of enhanced research quality in 11

of the 12 completed intervention studies reviewed. This included documented evidence

of enhanced participant recruitment in 8 studies, improved research methods in 4 studies,

improved variable measurement in 3 studies, and improved intervention outcomes in 2studies. This literature review also concluded that that there was very little evidence of

diminished research quality resulting from CBPR was reported (Viswanathan et al.

2004). An additional conclusion was that 47 of the 60 CBPR studies analyzed for the

review reported evidence of enhanced community capacity as an outcome of the CBPR

project, with 9 studies also documenting increased capacity among researchers.

It thus seems fair to state that there is value added from using a participatory

approach in health-related research. But until this belief can be experimentally (or at least

better) tested, the impact of CBPR on actual community health outcomes remains

uncertain.

II. Primary Care and Prevention

Since the advent of modern medicine, circa 1920, the public has largely

associated the observable increase in length and quality of life with physicians and

medicine. There can be no question that there is truth to this, especially when it comes

to treatment of illness and trauma care. But the evidence supporting the conclusion for

primary prevention (ie, preventing disease in the first place) is less clear.

Among others, Thomas McKeown and Robert Fogel are distinguished pillars of

skepticism when it comes to the historical role of medicine and physicians in lengthening

life (Fogel 1995; McKeown 1976; McKeown and Brown 1955). McKeown ties progress

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to the rise of public health infrastructure, such as sanitary plumbing. Taking the long

view, Fogel, an economic historian, attributes improvements to human health to advances

in nutrition and public health accomplishments not medical care. While most of this work

is focused on England and Europe more generally, McKinlay and McKinlay (McKinlay

and McKinlay 1977) contributed similar findings for America. The important work

Bunker and colleagues (Bunker, Frazier and Mosteller 1994) estimated that just 16% of

the life expectancy gain in the twentieth century was due to the beneficial results of

medical care. Furthermore, many assumed that when the British adopted national health

care in 1948 inequalities in health and life expectancy would dissipate due to better

access to medical care. Yet the publication of the so-called Black Report in 1980 showed

no such gains occurred. Socioeconomic status (or social class) still predicted health with

disturbing precision. Hundreds of more recent contemporary studies come to nearlyidentical conclusions.

Family physician

There is no dispute that physicians and the medical system more generally are

often essential to save the life of a trauma victim or for treatment of the chronically ill,

whether the illness is diabetes, asthma or other ailments. On the other hand, there is

considerable uncertainty in the impact of routine physician care on disease prevention.

Goodwin and colleagues (Goodwin et al. 2001) provide a useful overview of the

relationship between primary care and health. They write that the potential of primary

care practice settings to prevent disease and morbidity through health habit counseling,

screening for asymptomatic disease, and immunizations has been incompletely met.

These authors persuasively argue that, among other things,

1. Low rates of preventive services stem, in part, from the competing demands and

opportunities of other important primary care responsibilities.

2. Previous attempts to increase rates of preventive service delivery have often

resulted in modest improvement in the delivery rates of a limited range of

preventive services.

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3. Interventions that target a broad range of screening and health habit counseling

approaches have rarely been evaluated, raising concerns that existing

interventions may improve the rate of delivery of some services at the expense of

others.

Hsiao and Boult (Hsiao and Boult 2008) take the ideas further when they note the

commonly held belief is that health care quality affects primary care outcomes, but then

state that the evidence for this belief is fragmented and incomplete. What does appear

true is that (1) greater continuity of care is associated with less use of hospitals and

emergency departments, (2) greater continuity of care is also associated with lower health

care costs, and (3) effective communication may be associated with better health status.Saultz and Lochner (Saultz and Lochner 2005) offer a critical review of the literature

regarding the relationships between interpersonal continuity of care and the outcomes and

cost of health care. The conclude that although the available literature reflects persistent

methodologic problems, it is likely that a significant association exists between

interpersonal continuity and improved preventive care and reduced hospitalization.

Future research in this area must address more specific and measurable outcomes and

more direct costs and should seek to define and measure interpersonal continuity more

explicitly.

In sum, at this point it appears safe to say that consistent and high-quality primary

care appears to help prevent disease and minimize the effects of problems once they

occur. But research on the effects of scaling-up quality primary care for a whole

community is lacking, and thus we cannot yet argue from evidence that such an approach

is beneficial. Such conclusions must come from common sense and the weight of

available circumstantial evidence.

Cancer screening

Cancer is typically viewed as one of the most dreaded diseases of modern times.

It is estimated that nearly 1.5 million US men and women will be diagnosed with and

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It is hard to argue with the fact that in term of community prevention, water

fluoridation is king. Fluoride's benefits for teeth were discovered in the 1930s and

community water fluoridation began in 1945. CDC counts fluoridated water among its

greatest public health achievements of the 20 th century (CDC 1999).

According to Dye et al (Dye et al. 2007), although dental caries has declined

significantly among school-aged children since the early 1970s, dental caries has

remained the most prevalent chronic disease of childhood. Although significant

improvements in oral health for most Americans have been made over the past four

decades, oral health disparities remain across some population groups. Research suggests

a clear gradient between oral/dental health and socioeconomic status. In fact,

approximately 45% of impoverished 20-44 year old are have untreated caries compared

to 20% of non-poor persons in the same age group (CDC 2007). Similar ratios areobserved for all age groups.

What about the benefits of routine dental care? In their recent review of the

benefits of routine dental care, (Beirne, Worthington and Clarkson 2007) conclude that

research is inconclusive and that there is a need for well conducted trials in this area

which include a sufficient number of patients to detect a true impact of routine dental

care if any, and that are of significant duration (5 years or more).

Once again, and not surprising, evidence suggests dental care for oral trauma and

treatment for existing problems is beneficial. Seeing a dentist for a toothache is a good

idea. On the other hand, evidence for routine care in community settings, while probably

helpful, is not yet conclusive. More rigorous clinical trials are needed.

III. The Provision Of Health Insurance

Access to adequate health care vis--vis health insurance remains a central

political question of our time. The presumed deleterious effect not having adequate healthinsurance is based on two important causal factors: that (1) having health insurance is

critically important to receiving medical care and (2) that medical care has a positive

effect on health status. Evidence for both factors is vast but surprisingly inconclusive.

Furthermore, direct evidence of the impact of health insurance on a whole communitys

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health does not exist. No research addressing the provision of health insurance to a

particular community was found. Hadley (Hadley 2003a) provides a remarkably

comprehensive and careful review of the literature.

In terms of the broad impact of inadequate health insurance on health, the IOM

reviewed research and estimated the lack of health insurance (among the poor) caused an

excess 18,000 deaths per year. Further, the IOM concluded that the uninsured are much

more likely than persons with insurance to go without needed care. One nationally

representative survey cited found that uninsured people were less than half as likely as

those with insurance to receive needed care, as judged by physicians, for a serious

medical condition (IOM 2001). Those without insurance also receive fewer preventive

services and less regular care for chronic conditions than people with insurance (IOM

2001). Uninsured people with chronic diseases are less likely to receive appropriate careto manage their health conditions than are those who have health insurance. The impact is

that for the five disease conditions that the Committee examined (diabetes, cardiovascular

disease, end stage renal disease, HIV infection, and mental illness), uninsured patients

had worse clinical outcomes than insured patients (IOM 2002).

It may thus seem somewhat odd then that when Brown, Bindman, and Lurie

(Brown, Bindman and Lurie 1998) reviewed the literature published between 1966 and

1996, they found the assumption of lack of insurance yielding poor health was not be

supported by rigorous research. Why? Because while research shows that health

insurance increases amount of health care consumed it is not clear if health care

consumption actually improves health. More broadly, the fundamental problem with

studying the relationship between health insurance and health is that the insured differ

than the uninsured in many ways (SES, health status, race, education, etc.). Since

insurance coverage is determined by many of the same factors that determine health

status, it is difficult to disentangle these effects. When we ask why is an uninsured person

sick we must consider whether it is because they lack insurance or because they are poor.

Randomized experiments are needed here but due to ethical and financial reasons they

are hard to do in practice.

The only randomized experiment on this subject is the RAND Health Insurance

Experiment (Brook et al. 1983; Keeler 1985; Newhouse 1982; Newhouse 1993). The

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simple description of this study is that between 1974 and 1982, a total of 3,956 people

between the ages of 14 and 61 who were free of disability that precluded work were

randomly assigned to a set of insurance plans for three or five years. The overall results

revealed that the more people had to pay for medical care the less of it they used (adults

sharing costs of care made 1/3 fewer ambulatory visits and were hospitalized 1/3 less

often than those with free care). Importantly, the reduced service use under the cost

sharing plans had little or no adverse effect on health for the average person. On the

other hand, health among the sick poor (defined as the disadvantaged 6% of the

population) was adversely affected by lack of insurance. For those with poor vision and

for low income individuals with high blood pressure, free care brought and improvements

(vision better by 0.2 Snellen lines, diastolic blood pressure lower by 3mmHg). But free

care had no effect on major health habits associated with heart disease and Cancer(smoking, weight, cholesterol levels).

Another experiment-like study is going on in Massachusetts, which now has

(virtually) universal coverage for citizens. It is not yet clear if health is improving for the

newly insured in Massachusetts. Long (Long 2008) reports that in the first year after

implementation the proportion of uninsured dropped from 13 to 7 percent, with greatest

gains among lower income and younger adults and racial minorities. But the impact on

health has not yet been determined.

While not focused on the US population, cross national experiments are

nevertheless informative. Consider that universal health coverage in Taiwan began in

1995 and Wen (Wen, Tsai and Chung 2008) attempted to assess the role of national

health insurance in improving life expectancy and reducing health disparities there. This

study found that life expectancy improved for the lower ranked classes after

implementation of universal health insurance coverage. However, the magnitude of the

reduced disparity was small and large health disparity gaps remained. Wen concluded

that relying on health insurance alone to reduce health disparities is not realistic and other

measures will need to be taken to reduce health disparities. Canada had similar results.

Universal health coverage in Canada was rolled out in stages between 1962 and 1972.

Hanratty (Hanratty 1996) examined the effect of universal health coverage on infant

health outcomes. He found a 4% decline in the infant mortality rate when using a panel of

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counties from 1960 to 1975. When using a universal sample of live births from 1960 to

1974, the incidence of low birth weight decreased by an average 1.3% for the entire

population and by 8.9% for single parents following the introduction of Canadian

National Health Insurance.

Of course several quasi-experimental studies have been conducted that analyze a

change in policy which created some variation in health coverage. The principal

limitations of these studies are that they struggle to disentangle effects of insurance from

other factors, results often apply only to specific populations, and some of them have

small sample sizes. Studies of the termination of health insurance benefits in medically

indigent adults (Lurie et al. 1984; Lurie et al. 1986) and in a low income veterans

population (Fihn and Wicher 1988) found evidence of deterioration in health; specifically

hypertension was in poor control after termination of benefits. Other studies examine public health insurance in pregnant women, children, and the elderly. These studies

showed mixed results. Again, it is clear that health care consumption increases with

public insurance (Currie and Gruber 1996; Currie and Gruber 1997) but the evidence on

degree of improvement of health outcomes is mixed.

There are numerous (thousands, actually) of studies which rely on cross-sectional

data or longitudinal data to examine health care consumption, or the effects of health

insurance on health. Most of these studies find that having health insurance improves

health. Many of them compare health outcomes for insured and uninsured individuals.

While some of these studies do have interesting results, but as noted above there may be

many (unobservable) differences between those who are insured and those who are not.

This means that causal effects of health insurance on health can not really be evaluated

using these studies. In addition, some of these studies use health care consumption as a

measure of improved health; this is a problem because health care consumption does not

necessarily improve health. See (Hadley 2003b) for more.

In sum, there is conflicting evidence to date that health insurance improves health

in the general population but there is evidence that health insurance improves the health

of specific population subgroups. There is a surprising lack of experimental studies

examining the impact of health insurance on health in a given community. In the end, this

paper endorses Hadleys (Hadley 2003a) articulate conclusion:

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This review finds that there is a substantial body of research supporting the

hypotheses that having health insurance improves health and that better health

leads to higher labor force participation and higher income. However, none of

these studies are definitive; nor are their findings universally consistent. While allof the studies reviewed, including those whose findings are consistent with the

above hypotheses, suffer from methodological flaws of varying degrees, one

general observation emerges: there is a substantial degree of qualitative

consistency across the studies that support the underlying conceptual model of

the relationship between health insurance and health. (page 60S)

IV. Early Childhood EducationThe general rule in health research is that the higher a persons or communitys

socioeconomic status the better their/its health (Rogers, Hummer and Nam 2000).

Because educational attainment is arguably the most important component of

socioeconomic status (Oakes and Rossi 2003), it follows that the higher ones educational

attainment the better their health. Substantial research confirms this relationship. Since

education is cumulative, the roots of educational success lie in early life and early

education. The question at hand, then, is what determines educational success in early life

and what interventions improve it?

It is important to emphasize that until recently there has been little attention paid

to the effects of schooling be it pre-school or college on health outcomes. Instead,

most school-effects research has focused on the impact of this or that program on IQ

scores, graduation rates, employment opportunities and so forth. Links from early

education, especially, to health outcomes later in life are few and far between. Further,

there is virtually no literature on the effect of school segregation on health, in particular

youth risk behavior and only one article was found on school racial segregation and

school violence. An exception is Tarlov (Tarlov 2008), who stresses the importance of

the recognition that the production of child development is related to the production of

health. He argues that initiatives that provide high-quality early childhood education from

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birth to five years are likely to yield high health status both at the time of the initiative

and later in life.

There is virtual consensus that early life educational interventions are necessary to

mitigate the effects of disadvantage, although research addressing how early childhood

education affects life chances is long and complicated (Gormley Jr 2007). Heckman

(Heckman 2006) reviews evidence on the effects of early environments on child

development and achievement. He writes that early learning confers value on acquired

skills, which leads to self-reinforcing motivation to learn more and early mastery of a

range of cognitive, social and emotional competencies makes learning at later ages more

efficient and therefore easier and more likely to continue. Early family environments are

major predictors of cognitive and noncognitive abilities. Environments that do not

stimulate the young fail to cultivate these skills and place children at an earlydisadvantage. Children who fall behind may never catch up. The track record for

rehabilitation later in life, be it for criminal behavior or literacy, is remarkably poor.

Cognitive skills are important, but so too are noncognitive skills such as motivation and

perseverance. Heckman writes that Investing in disadvantaged young children is a rare

public policy initiative that promotes fairness and social justice and at the same time

promotes productivity in the economy and in society at large. Early interventions targeted

toward disadvantaged children have much higher returns than later interventions (1902).

The rigorous (i.e., experimental) evidence for the benefits of early childhood

educational interventions is relatively slim. A key reason is that ethical dilemmas abound

and effects often take years or even decades to observe. Still, several important studies

exist and merit summary review.

The Perry Preschool Program was a 2-year experimental intervention for

disadvantaged African American children initially 3-4 years of age and from low SES

families. Based in Ypsilanti, MI, the program began in 1962 and went to 1965. The

intervention was a morning program followed by accompanying afternoon visits by a

teacher to the childs home. A total of 58 young students were in this treated group (65

were in the comparison group). By age ten, IQ scores of the treated children were no

better than those children in the comparison group, yet Perry Program children had higher

achievement scores since they were more motivated to learn, presumably by the program

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itself. By age 40, the treated children has higher high-school graduation rates, higher

incomes, higher percentage of home ownership, few arrests and so forth. It is for this

reason that this program has received so much attention. Of course it is not clear whether

the school curriculum or the home visits are responsible for the gains. And several severe

methodological concerns remain unanswered (Olsen 2003).

Another high-profile effort was the Abecedarian of North Carolina, which was an

intensive center-based preschool program that also targeted disadvantaged children,

starting at age 4 months. In 1972, 112 children were randomized to the special program

or a comparison group. Children in the treatment group received childcare 6-8 hours per

day, 5 days per week. Additionally, they received nutritional supplements, social work

services and medical care. Importantly, it seems that this effort permanently increased the

IQ of children. Follow-up survey research found lower levels of smoking (39% v 55%),which is obviously very important to health outcomes (Olsen 2003).

Another program receiving attention is the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC)

program, which is more recent and larger in scale and less intensive (and less expensive)

that the Perry or Abecedarian programs. The CPC program provided educational and

family support to children aged 3 to 9. The program ran for 2.5 hours per day, 5 days per

week during the school year and 6 weeks during the summer. The curriculum emphasized

language and math skills. Compared to a (non-randomized) comparison group, CPC

program children had better school and labor market outcomes, they were also less likely

to be victims of child abuse or neglect or to engage in criminal activity (Olsen 2003).

While the non-experimental design of this programs evaluation is concerning, the results

remain promising.

Perhaps the best known early childhood educational intervention is Head Start,

which is a large scale program that began in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty. It was

designed to improve the poor childs opportunities and achievements in order to end the

pattern of poverty. Its seven major objectives were to (1) improve the childs physical

health, (2) help the childs social and emotional development, (3) improve the childs

mental processes, (4) establish patterns and expectations of success, (5) increase the

childs ability to relate positively to family members, (6) develop in the child and family

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a responsible attitude toward society, and (7) increase the sense of dignity and self-worth

of the child and his family. (Olsen 2003)

Research on the impacts of Head Start have shown mixed results. According to a

1997 Government Accounting Office (GAO) report, from over 600 published research

articles, only a few were credibly informative. GAO concluded that the body of research

on current Head Start is insufficient to draw conclusions about the impact of the national

program (Olsen 2003). This has now changed.

Head Start was recently evaluated through an experimental design (Puma et al.

2005). Approximately 5,000 newly entering 3- and 4-year-old children applying for Head

Start were randomly assigned to either a Head Start group that had access to Head Start

program services or to a non-Head Start group that could enroll in available community

non-Head Start services, selected by their parents. Data collection began in fall 2002 andwas continued through 2006, following children through the spring of their 1st-grade

year. Preliminary results show there were small to moderate statistically significant

positive impacts for both 3- and 4-year-old children on several measures across four of

the six cognitive constructs, including pre-reading, pre-writing, vocabulary, and parent

reports of childrens literacy skills. But no significant impacts were found for the

constructs oral comprehension and phonological awareness or early mathematics skills

for either age group. For 3-year-olds, there were small to moderate statistically significant

impacts in both constructs, higher parent reports of childrens access to health care and

reportedly better health status for children enrolled in Head Start. For children who

entered the program as 4-year-olds, there are moderate statistically significant impacts on

access to health care, but no significant impacts for health status. I

Because it considers broader and longer term outcomes, a recent study by Ludwig

and Miller (Ludwig and Miller 2007) on the impacts of Head Start merits careful

consideration. In this novel regression-discontinuity design study, researchers examined

the community benefits and impacts of Head Start interventions, which began in the early

and mid 1960s. The researchers note that Head Start is more than a daycare program; it is

a comprehensive bundle of child and family intervention components designed to give

children a true head start. Components beyond preschool include parent involvement and

counseling, nutrition education, social services, mental health services, and (physical)

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health services. Outcomes suggest that educational attainment (eg, high school graduation

and college attendance) was directly improved by Head Start. What is more, related

evidence suggests that community-level child mortality declined over the twenty years

after program initiation. The remarkable upshot is that this relatively strong study shows

that comprehensive community early childhood education not only impacts the success of

target children but the long term health of communities in which they grow.

V. Home visiting

It seems natural to assume home visitation interventions would increase the health

and welfare of target persons, families and communities. Akin to a house call by a

physician, social work and other public health nursing home visits have a long record of

use. There are some positive results in this line of inquiry, especially as regards pregnancy outcomes. Outcomes such as child abuse appear more recalcitrant.

Parker and colleagues (Parker et al. 2008) describe a study called the Community

Action Against Asthma (CAAA). This is a community-based participatory research

intervention in Detroit, MI that sought to improve childrens asthma-related health by

reducing household environmental triggers for asthma. After randomization to an

intervention or control group, 298 households with a child aged 7 to 11 with persistent

asthma symptoms participated. The intervention consisted of a planned minimum of nine

household visits over a 1-year period by community environmental specialists. The aim

was to work with the family in making environmental changes in the home to reduce the

childs exposure to multiple common asthma triggers. The intervention was effective in

increasing some of the measures of lung function, reducing the frequency of cough that

wont go away and coughing with exercise, reducing the proportion of children

requiring unscheduled medical visits and reporting inadequate use of asthma controller

medication, reducing caregiver report of depressive symptoms, reducing concentrations

of dog allergen in the dust, and increasing some behaviors related to reducing indoor

environmental triggers.

David Olds and colleagues (Kitzman et al. 2000; Olds et al. 1998; Olds et al.

2004) have conducted a series of randomized field experiments to assess the impact of

home nursing visits. Evidence of impacts on a childs anti-social behavior and a womans

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birth outcomes is mixed, as the magnitude of observed impacts were small. On the other

hand, one of their more prominent studies (Olds et al. 2004) addressed an urban,

primarily black sample and examined the effects of prenatal and infancy home visits by

nurses on mothers' fertility and economic self-sufficiency and the academic and

behavioral adjustment of their children as the children finished kindergarten. A variety of

outcomes measures were examined including women's number and timing of subsequent

pregnancies, months of employment, use of welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid,

educational achievement, behavioral problems attributable to the use of substances, rates

of marriage and cohabitation, and duration of relationships with partners and their

children's behavior problems, responses to story stems, intellectual functioning, receptive

language, and academic achievement. Results were promising. Compared to those in the

comparison group, women visited by nurses had fewer subsequent pregnancies and births(1.16 vs 1.38 pregnancies and 1.08 vs 1.28 births, respectively), longer intervals between

births of the first and second children (34.28 vs 30.23 months), longer relationships with

current partners (54.36 vs 45.00 months), and, since the previous follow-up evaluation at

4.5 years, fewer months of using welfare (7.21 vs 8.96 months) and food stamps (9.67 vs

11.50 months). Nurse-visited children were more likely to have been enrolled in formal

out-of-home care between 2 and 4.5 years of age (82.0% vs 74.9%). Children visited by

nurses demonstrated higher intellectual functioning and receptive vocabulary scores

(scores of 92.34 vs 90.24 and 84.32 vs 82.13, respectively) and fewer behavior problems

in the borderline or clinical range (1.8% vs 5.4%). On the other hand, there were no

statistically significant program effects on women's education, duration of employment,

rates of marriage, being in a partnered relationship, living with the father of the child, or

domestic violence, current partner's educational level, or behavioral problems attributable

to the use of alcohol or drugs. Overall, one must be cautious given some methodological

shortcomings. But the work of Olds and colleagues shows home visits are promising.

Similarly, Lee and colleagues (Lee et al. 2009) recently reported results of a study

that assessed the effectiveness of a prenatal home-visitation program in reducing adverse

birth outcomes among socially disadvantaged pregnant women and adolescents. Here

disadvantaged pregnant women and adolescents were randomized to either an

intervention group that received bi-weekly home-visitation services (n=236) or to a

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control group (n=265). Home visitors encouraged healthy prenatal behavior, offered

social support, and provided a linkage to medical and other community services. Services

were tailored to individual needs. The risk of delivering an LBW baby was significantly

lower for the HFNY group (5.1%) than for the control group (9.8%). The risk was further

reduced for mothers who were exposed to HFNY at a gestational age of 24 weeks

These authors conclude that a prenatal home-visitation program with focus on social

support, health education, and access to services holds promise for reducing LBW

deliveries among at-risk women and adolescents.

On the other hand, in their recent review, Howard and Brooks-Gunn (Howard and

Brooks-Gunn 2009) review evaluations of nine home-visiting programs to prevent child

abuse: the Nurse-Family Partnership, Hawaii Healthy Start, Healthy Families America,

the Comprehensive Child Development Program, Early Head Start, the Infant Health andDevelopment Program, the Early Start Program in New Zealand, a demonstration

program in Queensland, Australia, and a program for depressed mothers of infants in the

Netherlands. They examine outcomes related to parenting and child well-being, including

abuse and neglect. Howard and Brooks-Gunn conclude that, overall, researchers have

found little evidence that home-visiting programs directly prevent child abuse and

neglect. But home visits can impart positive benefits to families by way of influencing

maternal parenting practices, the quality of the childs home environment, and childrens

development. And improved parenting skills, say the authors, would likely be associated

with improved child well-being and corresponding decreases in maltreatment over time.

Howard and Brooks-Gunn also report that the programs have their greatest benefits for

low-income, first-time adolescent mothers.

VI. Conclusion

The Allina Back Yard Initiative (BYI) aims to improve the health of ageographically bounded neighborhood/community area. Extensive stakeholder

discussions led researchers and practitioners to focus improvements on four areas: (1)

engaging communities/building bridges, (2) primary and secondary prevention, (3)

improving access and (4) starting early. This report aimed to summarize the scientific

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support for these efforts. As they generally yield more defensible findings, appropriate

attention was devoted to experimental studies.

In this era of high-tech medicine, multi-million dollar research efforts, and

sophisticated social science, it is remarkable that no research on multiple simultaneous

efforts to improve a communitys health was found. Above all else, this paper

demonstrates the novelty of the BYI. Whereas nearly every other effort to improve health

(1) restricted itself to one aspect of community health, such as infant mortality, or (2) one

disease, such as diabetes, the BYI aims to improve community health in the broad sense.

No research on such a comprehensive effort to improve a given small geographic area

was found.

The principal finding of this paper is that existing scientific research does not

directly support the BYI plan to improve community health. But, there is relatively strongindirect evidence that the effort will prove successful. For example, there is evidence

that, separately, community-based collaborations, some screening and preventive

medicine, improved access to medical care, and early education improvements will

increase overall community health. In other words, the BYI is both groundbreaking and,

based on reasonable inference from existing science, likely to succeed in improving the

target areas health.

It must be mentioned that several prominent commentators argue for efforts much

like the BYI. First, Acevedo-Garcia and colleagues make a strong case that we must

move beyond merely documenting differences and deficiencies in health and begin to

addressing what can be done to improve it (Acevedo-Garcia et al. 2008).Such a what

can we actually do is refreshing and dovetails with Rossis idea of implementing

politically feasible programs that can be shown to improve lives (Rossi 1980). In a series

of commentaries, Woolf persuasively argues that prevention of disease is far superior

than treating disease and that in terms of prevention the best health policy is social policy

(Woolf 2009; Woolf 2008). Any careful read of the vast literature will force one to come

to the same conclusions. Furthermore, Lantz and colleagues clearly articulate that the

medicalization of health improvements fails to recognize social structural effects, such as

poverty, education and fundamental living conditions (Lantz, Lichtenstein and Pollack

2007). Such fundamental causes (Link and Phelan 1995) lie at the heart of modern

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social epidemiology. Finally, and quite remarkably, when Williams and colleagues

independently reviewed the literature and considered how best they might improve

community health they arrived at conclusions quite similar to this paper and the BYI

initiative (Williams et al. 2008). In the face of insufficient and ambiguous research, such

an independent validation of the BYI is reassuring.

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