Hannah Shadowen, MPH; Kristen O’Loughlin, MS, MA; Alicia Richards; Roy T Sabo, PhD; Jennifer Hinesley, PsyD; Kelly Cheung; William Thornton, MS, MBA; Alex H Krist, MD, MPH
Corresponding Author: Hannah Shadowen, MPH; Department of Health Behavior and Policy - Virginia Commonwealth University. Email: shadowenhm@vcu.edu
Section: Original Research
Publication Date: 1/13/2022
Introduction: Health behaviors, mental health, and social needs impact health, but addressing these needs is difficult. Clinicians can partner with community programs to provide patients support. The relationship between program location and community need is uncertain. Methods: We identified and geolocated community programs in the Richmond, VA that aid with nine domains of needs (mental health, smoking, unhealthy alcohol use, nutrition, physical activity, transportation, financial, housing, food insecurity ). For each census tract, we identified needs from public data sources. We used two methods to compare program location and need: (1) hotspot analysis to identify clusters of census tracts with above or below average needs and areas with above or below average number of resources (2) negative binomial regression model to compare the number of community programs within a mile or half mile of the centroid of the census tract with the level of need of the census tract. Results: We identified 280 community programs that provide aid for the nine domains. Programs most often provided financial assistance (n=121) and housing support (n=73). The regression analysis showed no relationship between the number of community programs and the level of need in census tracts, with two exceptions. There was a positive association between financial programs and financial need (RR 1.06, 95% CI: 1.03 – 1.10) and a negative association between housing programs and housing need (RR 0.87, 95% CI: 0.77 – 0.98). Conclusions: Community programs are generally not co-located with need. This poses a barrier for people who need help addressing these domains.