Safe at Home: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of a Municipal Intervention to Prevent Falls among Low-Income Elderly.

INTRODUCTION

Falls are the leading cause of fatal traumatic injury among people over 65 and the rate continues to increase. We evaluated a recently implemented municipal program providing no-cost baseline and follow-up home assessment and home modifications to reduce fall hazards among low-income elderly or disabled residents.

METHODS

Program participants received writ ten invitations to return informed consent for phone interviews that included process and outcome evaluation. Data analysis used repeat measures ANOVA and non parametric Wilcoxon signed rank tests.

RESULTS

During its first year, the program served 230 elderly or disabled low-income residents. Among 51 participants interviewed an average of 281 days after home modification, fear of falling was reduced, and annualized rate of falls decreased from an average of 0.92 (SD = 1.6) per person per year to 0.24 (SD = .74) (p<.001).

CONCLUSION

Home assessments and modest infrastructure improvements significantly reduced falls in a non-research, municipal setting.