POM1 Post-Ike Community Survey

Practice of Medicine 1 (POM1) Community Survey

As part of their first year training, medical students at UTMB are required to visit the homes of community members to gain interviewing skills and greater understanding of non-medical aspects of people’s lives in relation to their health. This year, the Home Visit program is focused largely on a survey that recognizes the general need to identify loss and recovery issues following natural and man-made disasters in general, and the more specific need to document such issues within the Galveston community following the devastation of Hurricane Ike. In addition to medical students, the home visits will incorporate other health professions students to enhance the inter-professional learning environment.

Developed by Alexandra Nolen, Laura Rudkin (Dept of Preventive Medicine and Community Health), and Sharon Petronella (Dept of Pediatrics), the questions selected were largely from several previous post-disaster surveys with additional questions added to respond directly to the context of recovery in Galveston County.

The questions capture key features contributing to household security and community development, such as health and access to care, housing and living conditions, child care, social support, and the ability to meet financial needs. Some questions focus on individual conditions, e.g. health status, while others describe features of the current community and indicate the future plans of residents in relation to rebuilding and staying in the area. The questions are also oriented towards identifying specific individual and household needs and the findings should point to areas where the government and community organizations can most effectively aim assistance to rebuild a vibrant community.

Research objectives.

The survey’s research objectives include the following:

• Document the health, living and social conditions experienced by families currently living in Galveston County who were residents of the county at least six months prior to Hurricane Ike’s landfall.
• Identify specific needs of families currently living in Galveston County in relation to health care, day care, housing, financial assistance, and transportation.
• Compare the needs of victims of Hurricane Ike living in the local area to those of victims of other disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Gustav.

Timeline.

The survey is being rolled out between February and April of 2009, with data analysis expected by June.

IRB and training.

This research project has been approved by the Institutional Review Board, and students will receive training on administering the survey including providing an introduction for the subjects on the survey, protection of privacy, handling of potentially sensitive information, instructions that participants may refuse to answer questions without penalty, concluding the survey, and providing information on community resources that may be useful to participants. Other technical issues to be covered in training include: ordering of questions, documenting open-ended responses, definitions of terms used in the survey, clarifying questions for participants without leading, and interpretation of responses. Students will also receive a briefing on the conditions found in other post-disaster communities similar to this as mental preparation for what they will likely see, and how to respond in a culturally and otherwise sensitive manner.

Results.

The aggregated results of the survey will be released to the community, and special meetings may be planned to discuss the results if desired by the community. Subject participants will receive a written form of the aggregated results through the mail if they wish. The aggregated results also will be reported to city planners and local officials, with an invitation to discuss the results in more depth for the purpose of planning responses to meet the needs identified, or to challenge the findings. The POM1 course will also hold a debriefing to discuss the results as well as the possibility to build additional student activities based on the findings.

Links:

• POM1 survey in .doc format.
• Practice of Medicine (POM1) Post-Ike Community Results.ppt

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