Kanarek Norma, Bialek Ron, Stanley Jennifer
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, 615 N Wolfe St, Room e7038, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Prev Chronic Dis. 2008 Jul;5(3):A93. Epub 2008 Jun 15.
The Community Health Status Indicators Project was undertaken to produce county-specific reports assessing the status of community health for local jurisdictions throughout the United States. To accomplish this assessment, the Community Health Status Indicators Project team selected peer groupings of counties to monitor and analyze the health of local communities relative to peer communities.
To identify peer counties, the project team used 5 categorical county demographic variables, a specified order for applying criteria, and a predetermined target for peer grouping size to subdivide counties into homogeneous subgroups called peer groupings.
Eighty-eight peer groupings were developed with 14-58 counties in each. The average size of each peer grouping was 35 counties. All peer groupings included counties representing at least 6 states.
Peer groupings are very useful for community health assessment. They convey the range of health status indicator values for similar counties, serve as a basis for expected numbers of reportable diseases, and provide a method for comparing communities with peer and U.S. medians. To maintain their usefulness, peer groupings must be updated periodically.
社区健康状况指标项目旨在编制针对美国各县的报告，评估各地辖区的社区健康状况。为完成此项评估，社区健康状况指标项目团队挑选了县的对等分组，以监测和分析当地社区相对于对等社区的健康状况。
为确定对等县，项目团队使用了5个分类县人口统计学变量、应用标准的特定顺序以及对等分组规模的预定目标，将各县细分为称为对等分组的同类子组。
共形成了88个对等分组，每个分组中有14 - 58个县。每个对等分组的平均规模为35个县。所有对等分组均包含代表至少6个州的县。
对等分组对社区健康评估非常有用。它们传达了类似县的健康状况指标值范围，作为可报告疾病预期数量的基础，并提供了一种将社区与对等社区及美国中位数进行比较的方法。为保持其有用性，对等分组必须定期更新。
