Stamford Health has released its 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) to the public. The 66-page report details a changing medical landscape across Stamford and Darien when compared to the state at large.
The report found significant changes in comparison to CHNA reports from 2016 and 2019 that were driven in large part by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, but was also heavily influenced by underlying social issues.
The report is focused on Stamford and Darien, where Stamford Health is the primary provider of inpatient services to most of the population. The results were based on both qualitative and quantitative surveying of residents, with an additional and more heavily weighted qualitative round focused on capturing opinions from underrepresented groups in both communities.
The results of the report emphasized the importance of social determinants of care, which are defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as consisting of five categories: educational access and quality, economic stability, social and community context, neighborhood and built environment, and health care access and quality.
The determinants are interdependent and enough disruption to one endangers the others.
The CHNA focused on poverty rates and their links to issues with health. It noted that approximately 10.3% of Stamford’s youth live in poverty, which is lower than the statewide rate of 14.6% but many times higher than Darien’s 0.6%. And within Stamford those poverty rates also reflected racial divisions, with only 5% of the White non-Hispanic population below the poverty rate while 14% of Black residents and 15% of Hispanic residents are estimated to live in poverty.
The median household income for Darien, $232,523, is also several times higher than that for Stamford ($93,059) and the state ($78,444).
Health outcomes in almost every metric followed the distribution of poverty. Covid-19 deaths also strongly correlated with those issues, although the CHNA found that in 2021 the top three concerns of many people who rely on Stamford Health were mental health, substance use and access to primary and preventative services. In terms of direct social determinants housing was the most frequently cited issue faced in all categories.
In a recent presentation of the 2022 CHNA report to Stamford residents at the Ferguson Library, Kathleen Silard, president and CEO of Stamford Health, stated that obesity and nutrition had previously been at the forefront of concerns, but 2020 realigned those priorities.
“It’s amazing to realize just how much has happened since 2019,” Silard said. “For that reason, we really felt that this community health needs assessment for 2022 would be very meaningful and of great interest to us and by the residents of Stamford and Darien.”
Silard also outlined efforts taken by Stamford Health to better meet the needs identified by the CHNA. These included a partnership with Liberation Programs to put mental health and substance abuse experts in the offices of primary care physicians throughout their network, as well as efforts to help Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons to bolster the Youth Mental Health Alliance.
Efforts to improve overall health access have focused on ensuring the presence of translators and multilingual outreach, according to Silard, who added that partnering with community organizations is also key to success.
However, when social indicators of health fall outside of the purely medical, Silard said it can be difficult for organizations such as Stamford Health to effect meaningful change on their own. Housing proved to be one of the most keenly felt issues across respondents, one where an increasing number of people have reported issues with affording housing ”” 5% of Stamford residents in the 2019 CHNA reported inadequate funds to afford adequate shelter or housing, compared to 13% of respondents on the 2022 CHNA.
Even Darien residents reported a spike across the same time frame, with 3% in 2019 increasing to 6% of respondents saying they were unable to afford housing in the past 12 months. For the state at large, the increase of 8% to 9% was smaller but indicating that the issue was already widespread.
Among people hospitalized in the Stamford Health system throughout 2021 who completed a survey on their social concerns, the report indicated that housing was a top issue as well ”” 64% of respondents in Stamford and 62% of respondents in Darien listed housing as their top concern.
Stamford Health is currently developing a Community Health Implementation Plan, which will be made available to the public in February 2023.
