Neighborhood-level nutritional assessments as an innovative teaching approach to understanding root causes of health disparities

Neighborhood-level factors can disproportionately affect underrepresented and underserved populations that contribute to their overall health disparity rates, particularly type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) as it relates to their access to healthy food choices. In San Antonio, Texas 61% of the 1.3 million residents are Hispanic and compared to the rest of Texas, socioeconomic and health disparities are especially pronounced: 61% of adults report having an unhealthy body weight, 31% have DM considered twice the national average and a mortality rate from DM complications that is second in the nation. The highest percentage of type 2 diabetes-related health care visits is with Hispanics that reside in zipcode 78207. The lowest percentage of DM-related health care visits is with Hispanics that reside in zipcode 78240. To enhance community nursing and sociology student understanding of the environmental influences that impact health disparities, two universities partnered and developed an innovative teaching initiative to allow their students to be part of an academic and public health partnership in community health improvement and research capacity. Students were tasked with gathering population-level nutritional data from the 78207 and 78240 zipcodes, analyze the data and then study its relationship to the DM rates of those zipcodes. This provided the students with a more robust understanding of the environmental determinants of health disparities which in turn will assist in the treatment of their future patients and clients. Lastly, this has provided the students with the necessary methodological skills required to conduct research in the elimination of health disparities.