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Development of a Needs Assessment for Low-income Seniors in Cleveland Ohio: A student-driven Interprofessional Approach

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Abstract

Background and Objective

Older persons with low socioeconomic status in the United States have different and unique health needs compared to younger persons. As part of a student-led, interprofessional partnership, we performed a needs assessment of community dwelling older persons with low socioeconomic status in an urban location within Ohio, USA.

Methods

Three entities participated in the needs assessment: a student-run health clinic, a Federally Qualified Health Center, and an apartment complex of the study population. Health professional students from medical, dental, nursing, social work, nutrition, and physician assistant programs led the needs assessment process. The process consisted of multiple phases, which included preliminary literature review, survey development, data collection, and analysis. The final survey was multidisciplinary, with six content areas covered in 37 items.

Results

One hundred nineteen survey responses were received, and multiple areas of need were identified including food insecurity, dental care access, and mental health. 93% of participants had at least one unmet health need and 39% of respondents met our classification for high need. The needs of the local study population had key differences from previously published data in more generalized populations of older community-dwelling individuals in the United States, notably lower utilization of dental care (43% vs. 66%), increased prevalence of possible food insecurity (30% vs. 17%), and increased use of age-appropriate preventive cancer screening services.

Conclusions

Multiple areas of need were successfully identified through a student-led interprofessional needs assessment. Future student teams can address the identified needs, again through interprofessional collaborations. This process may have unique benefits to help build robust community-academic partnerships, while fostering interprofessional collaborative opportunities among healthcare students.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Westerly Apartments Management team and the residents of Westerly Apartments for their support and involvement in the project development and deployment. This project spanned multiple years, and we would also like to thank all the students involved in the SHRC who volunteered for various aspects of the project. We lastly would like to thank Key Bank, who provided funding for the Case Western Reserve University Student Run Health Clinic that helped support this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    James K. Sullivan & Mingda Chen

  2. School of Dental Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Jennifer Jung & Catherine A. Demko

  3. Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Jesse Honsky

  4. Department of Community Dentistry, School of Dental Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH, 44106-4905, USA

    Catherine A. Demko

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  1. James K. Sullivan
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  2. Jennifer Jung
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Catherine A. Demko.

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Declarations

This study received support from the Student Run Health Clinic of Case Western Reserve University which is funded in part by Key Bank. All authors have no financial disclosures to disclose. All authors contributed to design, implementation, data analysis, and manuscript writing. This research was approved by the Case Western Reserve University Institutional review board (IRB) (Protocol #20210097).

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Sullivan, J.K., Jung, J., Chen, M. et al. Development of a Needs Assessment for Low-income Seniors in Cleveland Ohio: A student-driven Interprofessional Approach. J Community Health 49, 314–323 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-023-01298-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-023-01298-2

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