Using zipcodes to analyze community health needs: Implications for Asian American and other immigrant populations

A well-written HNA recognizes that economic, environmental and social situations contribute to overall health status and quality of life within the population. Health needs assessment efforts often use methodologies such as surveys, focus groups, population based studies or statewide data where descriptive statistics are computed and confidence intervals are revealed. Results often represent the central tendency (average) of the population studied, and when there are significant economic and demographic differences amongst communities which may result in health disparities, descriptive statistics tend to be insignificant due to high variance. Generally, results showing insignificant confidence intervals may actually be a sign of health disparities, but it does not pinpoint specific concerns and needs of communities, such as Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, and most importantly, where the most communities are in the boundaries of the studied population. This study identifies the most and less vulnerable neighborhoods by zip code, and analyzes the data sample by these two categories. Results are consistent with the expectations that significant differences in these areas exist. For example, vulnerable neighborhoods have more health problems and uninsured people, lack of insurance coupled with affordability. A number of health and health-related issues is surfaced such as depression, dental care, high blood pressure and lack of affordable health care for Most Vulnerable and Less Vulnerable zip codes. The results of this study pose important implications for Asian-American and other immigrant populations, whose health needs have been consistently marred by research results that are not representative of the particular communities.