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Evaluation

The LPHI Evaluation Team has designed a comprehensive evaluation plan for Steps to a Healthier New Orleans, which includes the CDC’s required Core Performance Measures as well as locally developed process and outcome indicators. The ongoing Steps evaluation incorporates long term health outcomes, and health-related behaviors with shorter term knowledge and attitude indicators and process indicators that measure the implementation of the program.

Steps implements the Behavioral Risk Factor Survey and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey in New Orleans. Both are national surveys that are often conducted at the state level, but are conducted at the parish/city level for the Steps evaluation. These surveillance systems allow for the comparison between New Orleans and other communities, as well as between years.

The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)
Established in 1984 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is a state-based system of health surveys that collects information on health risk behaviors, preventive health practices, and health care access primarily related to chronic disease and injury. Data is currently being collected for the 2007 New Orleans BRFSS.

Results from the 2006 New Orleans BRFSS

  • Among adults in the New Orleans area, 5% have been told they currently have asthma; 10% have been told they have asthma at some point in their lives.
  • As classified by the Body Mass Index (BMI), 29.8% of adults in the New Orleans area are overweight; 31.5% are obese; 38.5% are neither overweight nor obese.
  • Only 21% of New Orleans adults consume five or more servings of fruits and vegetables.
  • 32.7% did not participate in any physical activity in the past month.
  • Only 24.2% of adults surveyed report achieving the currently recommended levels of physical activity.
  • Among adults in the New Orleans area, 20.2% are current smokers.

Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS)

The YRBS includes national, state, and local school-based surveys of representative samples of 9th through 12th grade students. These surveys are conducted every two years, usually during the spring semester. The survey designed to determine the prevalence of health risk behaviors, to assess whether health risk behaviors increase, decrease or stay the same over time and to provide comparable national, state and local data. Just before landfall of Hurricane Katrina, Steps was able to gather and report data for the 2005 New Orleans YRBS. Data for the 2007 YRBS will be collected starting in October.

2005 New Orleans YRBS Results

  • New Orleans students have a higher rate of asthma than students from any other city participating in the YRBS. Among New Orleans students with asthma, 32.2% had missed school at least once during the previous year due to their asthma; 32.8% had visited the emergency room or urgent care center during the previous year because of their asthma. 2005 New Orleans YRBS- Asthma
  • New Orleans students are slightly more overweight than other students in the United States, but much less likely to perceive themselves as overweight. New Orleans students were less likely to engage in healthy weight loss activities, such as exercising or eating fewer calories, but more likely to try unhealthy methods, such as fasting for more than 24 hours, vomiting, or using pills, powders, liquids or laxatives. In fact, New Orleans students tried unhealthy weight loss methods more than students in any other city completing the YRBS. 2005 New Orleans YRBS- Overweight & Dieting
  • New Orleans ranked 9th of 17 cities completing the YRBS for daily fruit and vegetable consumption. Only 73.1% had eaten any fruit during the previous week. 2005 New Orleans YRBS- Nutrition
  • Over half of New Orleans high school students surveyed had tried cigarette smoking (52.8%), which was similar to national figures. However, New Orleans students were less likely to have smoked recently, smoke frequently and to smoke at school than students across the United States. 2005 New Orleans YRBS- Tobacco