Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About the Building Healthy Communities (BHC) Data
1. Who was surveyed?
2. How many interviews were completed in my BHC site?
3. Who do these data represent?
4. How can these data be used?
5. What is the 95% CI?
6. What do the significance tests mean?
7. What is the suggested citation for referencing the BHC Health Profiles?
8. Want more data?
1. Who was surveyed?
Given the focus of TCE's BHC efforts on children and their families, the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) was administered to a randomly selected eligible sample. Adult eligibility included being a parent of a child under age 18 or an adult age 18-40. Surveys were also administered to the adult most knowledgeable about a randomly selected child age 0-11 and with teens age 12-17, after receiving parental/guardian permission. The health estimates thus represent these populations for each BHC site.
2.
How many interviews were completed in my BHC site?
| Boyle Heights |
333 |
64 |
172 |
569 |
| Central Santa Ana |
330 |
62 |
213 |
605 |
| Central/Southeast/Southwest Fresno |
331 |
62 |
189 |
582 |
| Central/West Long Beach |
323 |
53 |
183 |
559 |
| City Heights |
296 |
59 |
182 |
537 |
| Del Norte County |
373 |
86 |
204 |
663 |
| Eastern Coachella Valley |
301 |
73 |
194 |
568 |
| East Oakland |
345 |
64 |
203 |
612 |
| East Salinas |
328 |
56 |
236 |
620 |
| Richmond |
306 |
59 |
179 |
544 |
| South Kern (Arvin-Lamont) |
368 |
84 |
286 |
738 |
| South Los Angeles |
360 |
78 |
171 |
609 |
| Southwest/East Merced County |
331 |
68 |
181 |
580 |
| South Sacramento |
349 |
75 |
191 |
615 |
3. Who do these data represent?
Estimates are representative of the eligible population living in each BHC site. For instance, the proportion unemployed in the Demographic Table represents the proportion of adults who are age 18-40 or age 40 and over living with a child who reported that they were not working at the time of the survey. Comparable estimates were produced for the same eligible population for the county and the state.
4. How can the Health Profiles be used?
Information in the Health Profiles is invaluable to community health. It can be used to identify community needs, track progress and gauge effectiveness of community initiatives, inform policies, offer evidence for advocacy, and to motivate individual and community wide health behaviors.
5. What is the 95% CI?
Each estimate for the BHC site also includes a 95% CI or "confidence interval." The confidence interval provides a range in which the "true" estimate lies. One may interpret the confidence interval as stating that we are 95% confident that the point estimate lies somewhere within the range of the confidence interval. Wide confidence intervals are often indicative of uncertainty surrounding that estimate and could be a result of small sample sizes.
6. What do the significance tests mean?
County and state estimates in each profile are marked with an "*" if they are significantly different from the BHC site estimate.
7. What is the suggested citation for referencing the BHC Health Profiles?
2009 California Health Interview Survey. Building Healthy Community Health Profiles. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and The California Endowment, 2012. Retrieved from www.healthpolicy.ucla.edu/bhc.
8.
Want more data?
The BHC CHIS data are rich and intended to be used by the BHC sites. The Health Profiles only provide estimates for selected key health indicators. If you are interested in obtaining additional data about your BHC site, please contact your BHC Site Program Manager or the TCE Evaluation Specialist, Mona Jhawar at mjhawar@calendow.org or CHPR Health Associate, Ami Shah at amishah@ucla.edu.
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